She won

When we decided to have kids, Steve and I were not looking forward to shopping and eating out. People would tell us, "Oh, you'll just take the baby *with you* and not make it a big deal." And I believed them. But we've been around plenty of screaming kids in restaurants and wondered why Those People don't just get babysitters instead of dragging their kids along to a nice restaurant.

I found an interesting restaurant (online*) in Leesburg, scheduled a date with Steve tonight, and we brought Olivia along because she normally sleeps through dinner. (The other night at Bertucci's it was loud enough to drown her out until she zonked out.) We fed her, drove 45 minutes to the restaurant, sampled their in-house brews, ate our salads, and Olivia played with her toys and charmed the fellow diners with a few squeals in the otherwise-quiet dining room. The chef even sent out an amuse bouche.

But it was time for sleeping and the child would not. She started crying and no amount of rocking would help. We were Those People. Steve and I traded off and the ladies near us and the waiter were all very gracious, but it's hard to enjoy an incredibly delicious meal with a screaming child so we bailed. Next time we'll get a babysitter.

*If you've never checked it out, Restaurant.com has discount gift certificates for local restaurants and you can search by zip code, which is how I found Vintage 50. Sometimes they even give additional discounts, so I paid just $2 for the $25 gift certificate we used tonight. Score! Makes the food taste even better, I promise.