Emma from Mommy has a Headache was one of the very first blogs I ever read, and she was one of my first commenters. So when I heard she’d written a book with Gillian and was looking for reviewers, I waved my hands wildly in the air (okay, I might have emailed her) and asked for a copy.
And?
It’s brilliant. The best parenting book I’ve ever read. I was giggling before I’d even finished the first chapter.
They declare it to be a ‘woefully inadequate guide to early motherhood’ and they’re right, insomuch as NOTHING can actually prepare you for childbirth and the sudden responsibility of a baby. They send you home without an instruction manual for gods sake. How are we meant to know how to stop the kid screaming?
Some things hit home – like ‘was a student midwife having a go at sewing you up afterwards?’ because um, YES. My vagina was not right for years after that. It wasn’t a student midwife, but a student ob/gyn who while she wasn’t doing her first set of stitches, was doing her first episiotomy. Add in my tendency to skin tearing and she pulled those stitches out three times before she finally gave up with a ‘that will do, sigh’. I mean, c’mon!
It answers questions you weren’t even game to speak aloud, like ‘will I ever have sex again?’ and ‘will I ever WANT to have sex again?’ as well as telling you how to avoid early onset ‘mumitis’ (when you turn into your mother.) Sadly, the mumitis information comes too late for me, as my garden and rapidly growing menagerie catapult me firmly into Mum territory. Of course, I’d argue that I’m merely being creative with my money, but no matter.
It’s definitely the book you want to be reading if you’re a real mum: aka, not a celeb mum. It includes a handy exercise guide (weight lifting! your baby will only get heavier and will want to be thrown in the air. Ski training! Someone has spilled yogurt all over the floor and you need to clean it up, without falling in it) and a guide on how to make mum friends (don’t try to bribe them).
Cocktails at Naptime is the perfect book for new mothers because we all need to laugh about how messed up our vagina is after pushing a 3.kg blob through it.
For more info about Cocktails at Naptime, check out the website, with links to where you can buy a copy and info on the authors. OR you can do what I do and check out their blog. Every book needs a blog of it’s own.
AND! If you’d like to win a copy of your very own, then leave me a comment and let me know your funniest/stupidest/worst parenting moment. The winner will be selected via Random.org.
Annnd, the winner is!
Kim! I’ll email you Kim.
Ooooh I love the sound of that! 🙂
Umm, well, when Max was born and put in my arms he pooed all over me but I didn’t have a clue… first sign of a troubled child maybe? LOL
Or how about when I asked Zack to stop prodding my tummy to which he replied “But I like it, it wobbles lots, like jelly!”. Yeah, thanks son…
And of course there’s the few days after Zack was born with my milk coming in and my baby blues happening when I was SO SURE that there was no way I could do this and I genuinely thought I might have to give him up for adoption. I still feel that way now sometimes funnily enough… 😉
Does giving my children chocolate bars and lollies for breakfast count, because I did that after we moved house for a couple of days 😀 Desperate Mummy leads to desperate measures.
hmmm Bad Mummy moments, let me think… Does using the dog/cat/pet chicken to clean up food spills on the carpet instead of a vacuum cleaner count?
I seriously think I’ll need this in the coming years. … No immediate plans, but when I start popping them out, i’ll need al the humour I can get
Kim, I thought dogs WERE the vacuum cleaner!
Veronica, no need to put me in the draw … no kids here, alas … but I love the idea of the book. I know how hard it is to get one up. Congrats to the authors. I hope it’s a hit.
I just had my worst parenting moment last Friday when my 1 year old daughter cut herself badly on a tiny little crack in a mirror (!?) and we had to drive to the doctor who wasn’t there yet (too early), wait to be seen, then referred to the children’s hospital, drive there in peak hour traffic, endure numerous inspections of cut finger, enact nil by mouth so bub ended up only having one breastfeed in 22 hours, witness 3 attempts at IV drip insertion, entertain injured baby all day, nervous wait while bubba had reconstructive surgery under general anaesthetic 8 hours after arriving at hospital, sleep overnight in hospital armchair and now live with very cranky baby who has a cast on her arm that she continually tries to rip off. Sigh!!!
P.S. I really enjoy your blog and read it everyday. Excuse the mushiness but I think you’re an inspiration in your outlook and attitude towards life in general and parenthood. Cheers for sharing your experiences and thoughts with us.
Funniest Mummy Moment: Sitting in the bath earlier this week, flicking water at the baby (14months old) and telling her she categorically could NOT get in my bath, because she would shit in it. She scrunched up her face, tiled her chin up defiantly and yelled something that sounded EXACTLY like ‘Fuck you!’
Cue a solid minute of stunned silence and ‘Did she just…?’ looks between the husband and I.
Worst Mummy Moment: Height of PND, 12 months into breastfeeding a refluxy, milk-allergic baby, tired, sick, run-down, no help, and one day I just snapped because I needed so desperately to do some laundry and clean the kitchen up a bit but she wouldn’t let me put her down and I’d spent the last hour playing nice-patient-mummy and cooing at her and trying to do things while she just screamed and hit me and undid any work I did.
So I went upstairs, set up her travelcot, out her in it with some toys and a banana, closed the door, put my ipod on and got on with what I needed to do. I returned 15 minutes later, chores done, not refreshed, but slightly less enraged and demented. I still feel terrible, but one of us was going to end up out of a window if I didn’t do it.
Stupidest Mummy Moment: Burker King in Singapore Changi Airport. I am wearing Baby Beast in a front-carry wrap. She is 9 weeks old. Old man comes up to us and tells me I should carry her like that, her legs will break. I bite my lip, smile, and tell him she’s fine.
Ten minutes later we are sitting in a quiet corner, having folded up every soft item in our carry on luggage (including something ridiculous like 6 blankets) and put her on it to sleep while we eat and re-pack our stuff. Same man comes up to us and tells us not to let her sleep like that, her head will go flat.
I swear to god I nearly smacked him. If he hadn’t been so old and I hadn’t been worried about why he had to work at a fucking Burger King in an airport at his age, I would have gone in and made a complaint about him.
Other-Mummies Mummy Moment: On bus. Don’t know it yet, but have incredibly severe stomach bug which will flatten me for weeks. STUPID WOMAN has her pushchair placed so that I absolutely cannot get mine into the pushchair-bay, despite loads of room. She watches me struggle to squeeze past, but doesn’t move her own pushchair. She then watches me get battered by the doors for the next ten minutes because I have to stand in the doorway. Eventually she moves her pushchair, but instead of moving it down INTO the space, she moves it further out into the entrance, still not leaving me enough space to get mine in. I get it in as far as I can, and then give up, however she’s now blocked herself into the seat, so I have to stand. Terror Toddler begins playing with the bell. It’s not behaviour I want to encourage, so I put my hand over it. Cue Toddler Rage. This carries on for a few minutes, when Asshole Mother says ‘She won’t press it, just let her play with it.’ I nearly smack her. I reply ‘She WILL press it. It’s fine.’ More back-and-forthing with the bell, more toddler-rage, I am about to drop dead, or vomit, or possibly both at once. Deathwish Mother once again interjects with ‘You should just let her play with it, she won’t press the bell.’ I snap again ‘Yes she will, she’s pressed it before, I don’t want her pressing it.’ If I had had more energy, she would have got it both-barrels.
When we get to the end of the bus route, it is fairly obvious she has got on the wrong bus and expected this one to go further. I shamefully and very immaturely get a large amount of glee from not answering her queries about it, and just shrugging. In my nicer moments, I rationalise that there were literally a dozen buses going from that road to her final destination. In my more honest moments, I know I gave as much of a fuck about whether she got there as she gave about me for the entire half hour we shared a space together.
My worst ever parenting moment was when my first born was six weeks old. I’d heard/read/been told that from about six weeks your child will sleep through the night. She didn’t. Cried evry night at around 11pm-midnight, then again in the wee hours. I’d be walikng the floor with her, desperately wondering what the hell is wrong? why isn’t she sleeping? She did eventually learn to sleep through the night about a week or so later. Living far away from family and help, I had no clue at all that she was probably just hungry. It wasn’t until I had my second baby, who had a very particular hunger cry, that I twigged. I’ve felt guilty ever since for the way I “starved” her.
No need to enter me as I am chortling over the book already and getting performance anxiety over the review that I’m yet to write 🙂
Just wanted to say great post however – and hoping that – erm – *downunder* is all healed up nicely by now 🙂
The book sounds perfect, something I need to read as soon as possible. My 14 month old isn’t the best napper. Every time I put him down in the cot he cries. I leave him there. Yes I let him cry in his cot alone. Why? Because he wouldn’t nap otherwise. Yes I feel bad about it. Every single day.
hee,hee. While I havnt had the pleasure myself, I was my little sister’s birth helper, and I remember the midwife grabbing my arm and INSISTING that I admire the EXCELLENT job she had done stitching my little sister back together – “LOOK!” she said, pointing to her neat little stitches along a jagged tear line “good as new! – best one I have ever done!”
love your blog Veronica and I can only say “HFS, a SNAKE under the FRIDGE!” “Jaysus!”
Sounds great V, I had a look at the blog.
Funniest/Stupidist/Silliest/Worst/Panicky parenting moment:
When Emily was about 4 months old she just started rolling and I used to have her on a blanket on the floor surrounded by her little toys. One day I was doing the housework and came to check her – But she had dissappeared!!!
I panicked and checked under everything, especially the cabinet which was next to the blanket and the coffee table. She was nowhere to be seen. A wave of panic was now shooting through me and I stupidly checked every other room in the house even though I knew she couldn’t have rolled that far that quickly.
I also figured that she should soon be starting to cry or call out to me, but there was silence. This made me panic more.
I decided to lay down and look under the cabinet again. This cabinet only had about 8 inches clearance but when I looked properly, Emily was under it, right up in the corner against the wall, grinning at me.
I actually had to half pull her by the arm and leg to get her back out of the tiny space and wondered how she had wriggled under there in the first place!
Thanks so much for the great review! So pleased we tickled your funny bone.
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