Oh, baby!

I'm delighted to report that my friend who went into labor at my booksigning was safely delivered of a bouncing baby boy yesterday morning.

In other news, it's Valentine's, which means I have chocolate. Well, I often have chocolate. Here's my dirty little food secret: I snack on Chipits, the chocolate chips that go into cookies. Not a lot (about a tablespoon once, twice, possible three times a day), but enough to give me a little choco-fix. After all, I tell myself, they're only semi sweet.

Today, though, I have the real deal courtesy of the cutie I married many years ago, and who can still make me laugh so hard, I can hardly breathe. He's also a very calming influence at other times, able to "talk me down" when my vivid imagination goes into overdrive and I get into full blown Worry Mode. Plus, he has wonderfully broad shoulders and is still quite athletic -- he plays ultimate frisbee, and for a guy over forty to be doing that...well, let's just say his teammates are flabbergasted when he tells them how old he is. One of my daughter's co-workers recently pronounced him "hot." She was flabbergasted (as in, "My DAD?"), he was tickled, and my son and I got to enjoy their reactions.

But here's the thing: he is hot. Any guy with those eyes, those lips and those shoulders, who can still make me laugh and feel like a teenager, who loves me just as I am, who's so patient, kind and loyal and a wonderful father, is totally, utterly hot and always will be. I am one lucky woman, and believe me, I know it.