Our Third Night without Baby Doodle

Last night was Mr. Doodlebug's office's holiday party. It was like an extravagant wedding. I wore a strapless black dress that I had worn years before I ever had a baby (and fit into it quite well I must say). Mr. D wore a navy blue pinstripe suit. He looked dashingly handsome. My father and his wife are in town from Senegal (they arrived last week for my grandfather's burial), and they watched baby Doodle. He was a well-behaved little prince for them. The holiday party was at the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue in Center City. We valet parked, checked our coats and headed to the full open bar. There were hors d'ouevres brought around by tuxedo-clad waiters and our plates were whisked away as soon as we were finished eating from them. There was a fondue buffet with four different cheese fondues (brie, fontina, gruyere and blue), apples, breads and pears. It was delicious. There was also a chef making different pastas including gnocchi. I didn't partake in the pasta anticipating the big meal we were about to enjoy. We went downstairs to the ballroom for dinner. A ten-piece band played nice jazzy music and some classical wedding songs (like At Last and What a Wonderful World). We sat at a table with three pregnant women and their husbands and another couple who were childless. We were served more wine. Then they came around with large bowls with a small scoop of what looked like brown sugar -- which turned out to be a pecan-cinnamon mold -- over which butternut squash soup was poured. The soup was incredibly tasty. Then came the salad course. It was good, not fantastic, but good. The main course came next. I had the vegetarian option and Mr. D had the beef. Both were excellent. People danced, mingled, ate. We mingled and ate. I wanted to dance when the band played At Last pretty early in the evening, but Mr. D said not enough people were dancing at that point to get out there and be stared at. So we mingled. I got to meet lots of Mr. D's colleagues and friends. It was nice. It was really nice to have a night out without baby Doodle.

We left about 11:20 p.m. and decided to take I-76 home given the lateness of the hour. We got onto I-676 to get to I-76. We're driving along 676 and pass an exit then we see a sign that says "Ramp Closed." What ramp? We assume it's not the ramp to get onto 76 because that is such a big entrance -- the two left lanes -- and because we would have been sufficiently warned as we got onto 676 that we would not be able to get onto the biggest road in Philadelphia. Ah, how wrong we were. The "ramp" they were referring to was in fact the left two lanes of the highway. So we had to take 76 East (the opposite direction than what we wanted). We got off at the first exit (30th Street Station). We drove around the station and waited in a tremendously long line of cars to get onto 76 West. I was anxious to get home and find out how baby Doodle was, if he was still up, if he had cried himself to sleep etc... I really hate stupid useless signs like "ramp closed" after you're already on the road and there is more than one ramp!

We eventually got home. Baby Doodle was fast asleep and had been since 8:30 p.m. I went into his room to turn on the monitor. He was peacefully sleeping in his yellow bear pajamas and blue fleece sack. He's such a good baby. It was quite pleasant to spend an evening out eating good food and drinking fine wine.