Montecito Mama

Save the date for Girl's Weekend 2018 - Highlights include Boniva Tartinis and Kegel breaks with my girlfriends since we were, like, 40.

When the house goes suddenly quiet and the parents are prompted to ask each other, "Where's Lucie?" the answer usually involves clean-up for projects underway; like the slathering up of G.I. Joe's with prescription diaper cremes or the potty training of dolls in the toilet.

What a glorious day to honor my father-in-law, who turns 60 today! This is a man who would give my children his last dollar if he thought it would make them happy. He can barbecue like nobody's business, and McGuyver up anything with a roll of duct tape and a water bottle. He is the best combination of ferocious and kind and we love him very much! Trio serenade performed by Grayson, Kyelee and Lucie.

We've discovered a few things about Lucie now that she has unlocked the secret of speech. ONE: there is a song in her heart ALL DAY LONG. TWO: "Sasha," "Sushi," and "Shush up!" are good answers to a myriad of questions. And, THREE: the girl really loves pink. All her clothes and shoes and yogurts and sippy cups have to be pink. Luckily, her pink spectrum is vast enough to include magenta, red, maroon and some lavenders. I just read a new study that claims an evolutionary basis for this preference for pink. Back in prehistoric times, the men would hunt and the women would gather fruit, etc. So it kind of makes sense that they'd find more food if they could identify red ripe fruits. This prehistoric recollect may also help to explain her penchant for public nudity, but what about the attraction to tiaras and lip balm? I think we'll switch bedtime stories from board book fairy tales to Ms. Magazine tonight.

I've been traveling a lot for work lately, and on the last return home hadn't even put the car into park before Grayson burst through the door and flung his skinny arms around my neck. "I've missed you, my boy," I said. "I think you've grown while I was gone!" "Yep," he said proudly. "I go all the way to the bottom now." Grayson attended an Indiana Jones birthday party yesterday and brought home all sorts of theme-related goodies, including a plastic snake which I erroneously called a rattlesnake. "No, it's a Chinese snake, Mom," he corrected. "How do you know?" I asked. "Because," he replied, "it says on the bottom, 'Made in China."

I was in the sold-out crowd last Friday night as two of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert, spoke at UCLA. Highlights were Elizabeth Gilbert's funny and graceful opening talk about Anne, and then Anne's hilarious reading of "Ski Patrol" from her latest book "Grace (Eventually)," in which she falls off a chairlift and pretends to be fine. Anne Lamott's talk picked up the conversation right where her books leave off; launching into diatribes about her legendary fears and hangups, raising her son Sam, railing at the Bush administration, ministering to friends, loving Jesus, staying sober, getting older. The difference in hearing her speak, rather than reading her books, is an appreciation for her comic sense of timing. My side ached from holding in laughs so that I wouldn't miss her next witticism. My friend Kir now has a tiny (okay, HUGE) crush on her. Elizabeth Gilbert has sold four million copies of Eat, Pray, Love. If you haven

I loved Cookie magazine's unbelievably objective and sooo not hostile point-value guide to help settle the question of which parent is really pulling more weight around the house: 1. Clipping the kids' toenails: 5 points. 2. Shopping for a child's birthday present: 5 points (not your own gender: add 5 points). 3. Cleaning congealed toothpaste off the sink: 5 points. 4. Reading a bedtime story: 5 points (Dr. Seuss: add 10 points). 5. Attending a child's birthday party where you don't know any of the adults: 20 points. 6. Working a shift at the school fundraiser: 10 points. 7. Filling out the school paperwork: 10 points. 8. Knowing the pediatrician's phone number by heart: 5 points. 9. Pushing your child on the swings until your soul turns black: 10 points. 10. Morning duty: 10 points. 11. Morning duty after a late night out: 20 points. 12. Cleaning the funk out of a sippy cup: 10 points. 13. Cleaning cooked rice off the floor after a meal: 10 points. 14. Setting