Have I talked about my cholesterol on here yet? I don't think so. It's elevated. I'm trying to get it down. It's genetic. It's lame. Enough said.

In addition to the pizza, we had planned to pop a bottle of 1983 Bordeaux that I've been carting around for at least a decade. Dan was born in 1983 and this was the first we'd hung out since his birthday a couple weeks ago. This particular bottle of wine was given to me at a wine tasting when I worked at Spago in LA. When I showed it to the sommelier at the time, he told me that it was either going to age very well and be delicious or end up being pretty mediocre - a total crapshoot. I have moved that bottle from Los Angeles to Washington DC to Portland, taking great care to ensure it stayed horizontal. And last night when I took it out of its special box and ceremoniously took off the bubble wrap, it was apparent to all that the bottle's seal had loosened at some point and the wine had leaked a little. Uh-oh. I took off the foil; it crumbled. I pushed the corkscrew into the cork; it was soft like butter. I took a whiff of the wine; it smelled like moldy vinegar. Talk about a disappointment! We cracked open some beers and some other bottles of red wine and let bygones be bygones. Clink! Clink! Let the games begin.

Dude took the girls up for a shower while the rest of us started playing a card game. All of a sudden there was terrible screaming - the kind of screaming a mother never wants to hear. I knew instantly it was the Bug and I ran upstairs as fast as physically possible. I threw open the bathroom door and there was Dude holding both Belly and the Bug. Buggy had her face pressed into Dude's arm. There was a steady stream of dark red blood running from her face down his arm. She had slipped on her way out of the tub and apparently bit her tongue. She was hysterical and wouldn't let us look in her mouth. The amount of blood was truly alarming. I feared the worst, of course - half of her tongue was going to be dangling in her mouth and we were going to have to take her to the emergency room to get it reattached. In my head, I told myself to get it the fuck together because I needed to be strong for my kid. I finally got Buggy to calm down and we looked in her mouth. Everything was attached, but she had a nice gauge from one of her canines. And she had stopped bleeding at that point. It was clear she didn't even need stitches, but what an effing freak out!

Tucking them into bed after that was pretty uneventful. I kissed each of them and said goodnight. As I walked out of their room, I said, "Goodnight, everybody. I love you." And that's when it happened. The Bug said in response, "Lub lu." I froze. 

"I love you, Buggy." 

"Lub lu."

"I love you, Belly."

"Luv Oo."

They told me they love me!!! THEY TOLD ME THEY LOVE ME! It was amazing. I totally welled up as my heart overflowed a thousand times over. In the span of 20 minutes, I'd had two such opposite extremes of maternal emotion. I headed downstairs and poured myself a biiiiiiiiiiig glass of wine. To quote one of my favorite moments from The West Wing: "Game on, boyfriend." It was time to kick my family's collective ass at cards. I was PUMPED.