If I hadn’t already been lucky enough to have a great day after a string of not-so-great ones, my kids asked to go to the book store.  I didn’t promt it…Tucker just straight up asked and the girls nodded their assent.  If you know anything about me, you know I love to go to the bookstore!!  So…today I got a new book anda new cd. 

Before I tell you about my new book, I have to rewind a few months.  There is a book I bought back before Christmas from amazon.com called “Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay: And Other Things I Had to Learn as a New Mom”.  It had me in stitches! This girl is seriously funny! (She reminds me a lot of my friend Jesse, for those of you who know her and how delightful she is!)  One of my favorite stories she tells is about calling her pediatrician at 10pm because her 11-day old daugher seemed “sleepy”.  He ever-so-politely tries to convince her that her baby is not dying of some rare, dreaded disease.  The baby is probably just fine.  She responds with:  “PROBABLY??”  How many times have I myself said that to Marshall!  🙂  Ha!  Wilder-Taylor also talks about other women who love their babies too much, the fascination with poop once you have kid, social life after kids, and the such.

So while we were at the bookstore, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a new Stephanie Wilder-Taylor book on sale: Naptime Is the New Happy Hour: And Other Ways Toddlers Turn Your Life Upside Down.  I bought it at 1 this afternoon and I’m already half-way through with it!  It’s not too long, the chapters are broken up into nice, easy chunks…and it’s just funny!  It’s more like reading a letter from a friend than a parenting book.  So far she’s entertained me with stories about how you can go all out on holidays that were previously boring, suburban life, taking your kids to Target for recreation time, other moms who make you feel like crap because they’re so awesome, and minding your mommy manners. I should probably read that last section a few times.  I’m not very good at that!  But just to give you a little taste of her writing, here are two sample passages:

For the first year [of your child’s life] your main job in the parenting biz is to keep the little suckers alive.  Now that’s not nearly enough.  A mom of a toddler has a whole new set of concerns, worries, and questions, like “Who the hell is this Dora chick?  And why does my child need to own everything with her picture on it?”  “Is it wrong to have a cocktail at two in the afternoon?” And “Where did my child learn to say ‘shit’?”  Where’s the book for that?

Real moms will let you in on the fact that they are sometimes inconsistent with their discipline-that they have at times totally lost it over a minor infraction, like their toddler’s totally normal refusal to take a bath when asked very nicely and promised “no washing of hair”.  Real moms will call you in tears because their kid hasn’t stopped barfing since she stupidly let him have three huge pieces of cake at a three-year-old’s birthday party.  Real moms know that trying to limit TV watching to a half hour a day is about as realistic as Kellie Pickler trying to maintain that she didn’t get a boob job.  Real moms will tell you that their four-and-a-half-year old is only 80 percent potty trained.  Real moms know that when it comes to being a parent, there is no perfect scorecard.  No matter how many hours you spend sitting on the floor coloring, reading stories, kissing boo-boos, and singing songs, there will be times that you fall short.  And most of us try to accept that as best we can.

 So…these two books along with Martha Brockenbrough‘s book It Could Happen To You: Diary Of A Pregnancy and Beyond are now on the must-read list for all my new-mommy friends!  And you honestly don’t even have to be a new mommy to appreciate it.  But you do have to have a sense of humor, and you must not be easily offended!  She’s brutally honest! 

So if you need a good laugh, or at least a smile or two, go on over to amazon.com or drop by your local bookstore, and grab one of these not-life-changing-but-pretty-darn-funny books!

**Disclaimer:  Stephanie Wilder-Taylor does quite frequently use curse words.  To me, they’re all warrented, but if you don’t like books with curse words, these are not for you!