Best date ever!

Took Rachel to a fancy dinner and live auction tonight. Drew's in Seattle until late Monday night and tonight's event is the biggest law-school related event of the year, and we need to save money on babysitting so...as soon as I found out one of the professors was bringing his 2-year-old son, Amos, I decided to drag Rachel along. (It also enabled me to justify working from home today, which is always helpful when I'm solo parenting).

I was a little stressed at whether this would work. Rachel is well-behaved in public but 2+ hours at a boring adult event is a little much for a 3 1/2 year old. So I filled a backpack with colored pencils from Grandma and Grandpa, a bunch of coloring books, a few toys, some princess cards, a complete change of underwear and stockings (in case she peed on her dress by accident), her doll Elizabeth and stuffed pony, Sophie, and a bunch of assorted snacks.

And...how much of it ended up getting used?? NOTHING. Only Elizabeth. Translation: Rachel is a major champ and I can take her ANYWHERE!

We got to the auction around 6:15; dinner was supposed to be served at 6:30 but we didn't hit the buffet line until 7 or so. We arrived just as Amos and his dad, Paul, arrived, so we were easily able to find seats at a corner near the tent dispensing drinks (and close to the exit in case we needed to leave quickly). I parked us in two chairs and Rachel immediately asked to inspect the table full of desserts (it was a dessert auction, too, and I had quite a time trying to explain bidding and high price to Rachel, who really wanted to sample some of the yummies. So did I, in fact). Then we looked at some of the other auction items and I introduced her to a couple of professors. She was absolutely charming and lovely in a flowery dress, pink stockings and purple bead necklace.

All the women were dressed to the nines and I had fun pointed out all the wild-looking shoes they were wearing and getting Rachel's commentary. Oh, I can't wait until she's old enough to make snarky remarks about skintight dresses and badly applied makeup!

Rachel didn't eat much of the dinner, turning up her nose at the chicken until I fed pieces of it to her. Then I relented and told her I had string cheese and goldfish crackers. She ate a bunch of goldfish during the dessert auction (each table submitted a bid, and the top 20 or so tables got a chance to take home dessert. The highest bidders, $300+, got their first choices, the next highest got their choices, and so on until our lame table, which submitted a bid of $35. Two first-year law students and two low-paid administrators -- Paul had taken Amos home by that time because he was approaching meltdown -- couldn't afford a bid even close to $100).  We ended up with a plateful of ginger-pear cupcakes with sour cream frosting. Rachel had hoped to get a slice of chocolate cake from Konditorei, a legendary Salem bakery and that Drew and I love, but she happily chomped through a cupcake. I tried two bites and thought they were ok, but not enough to take home.

When I told Rachel we were going home, she said, "Yay! We're going home! I love going home!" and quite cheerfully left. On the way out we passed a security guard who had seen Paul and I bringing our children inside. "You have very well-behaved children," she said firmly, and I thanked her profusely. As I did Rachel for being so well-behaved and so fun to be with tonight. "I'm glad you came," I told her. "It kept me from being too lonely."

On the way home she said, "This was the best Friday ever! I really liked the event at the university." And I had a much better time that I thought I would.