Dinner with friends

This morning I had to attend a new members' orientation meeting for the Oregon Area Jewish Committee that lasted until 1:30, and I had a bunch of errands to run before we headed out to our friends Melissa and Steve's house. They live in Lake Oswego, so it was a bit of a drive to get there but totally worth it (even if I was hung over from the nice evening out Drew had treated me to on Saturday night).

Rachel was a total champ, as usual. She hung out at the kitchen table with the big kids, eating a little of the lasagna and being a friendly little person, while Drew and I talked with Melissa, Steve, and their high-powered guests, one of whom is a classics professor at Reed College and one of the world's experts on the Sparta monarchy and met her husband at Oxford. I brought a homemade fig cake with buttermilk glaze that the classic professor adored and immediately demanded the recipe for.

After a while I went into the kitchen to check on Rachel, and all the kids (there were three other pre-teen girls and one pre-teen boy who wandered in and out of the festivities) had left the table. Guess what they were watching? The Sound of Music, my favorite movie in the whole world (which I of course told Rachel), and her legs were tucked under a big blanket just like the other kids and she looked so adorable I wanted to cover her little face with kisses. One of the dads had come in and told his 13-year-old it was time to go home, and she pleaded with him to stay, and then Drew and I joined him, and Rachel looked up and said, "Go away, Mommy and Daddy! Go join the other grownups." Really, it's hard not to laugh at her sometimes.