Now, many of my anecdotes to my friends start with "so I was reading this blog the other day, and this is hilarious..."
Or I email posts to my message board, or my sister, or my friends.
One blog that I often email is Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures.
Amber started a blog, and because she didn't have photographs of her daily activities, she drew some crappy ones on her computer. They're stick figures. The drawings are truly crappy. And hilarious. Amber lives in California with her two boys. She reminds me a lot of a few friends I have who also have two boys. It's not boy specific though. I have two girls and I find myself relating to it often. And I know people who don't have young children who also love reading her posts.
And now, she has a book! A book that I have been anxiously awaiting the release of. I pre-ordered my copy weeks ago. This was a big deal. She was even featured in Parents!
Yesterday, it came!
When the girls and I came home from our afternoon jaunt to Target (as opposed to our morning jaunt to Target), my book was waiting for me!
I couldn't help it. I had to open it immediately and start reading it. Just for a minute. To see what the drawings looked like in print.
Twenty minutes later Adam took it away from me. Because I said I was going to cook dinner. And then I didn't. Fine. He had a point. He was entertaining the children, and they were hungry.
I cooked dinner, we ate, and Madison started her after-dinner Little Einstein viewing. I stacked up some things to take upstairs with me while I ran Reagan's bath.
I called down that Reagan's bath was ready, and Adam called back that she was happily playing and watching with Madison. He'd bring her up when it was over, or when she started getting fussy.
Well, that sounded like a "go ahead and read your book" to me.
I ended up reading the entire book by 8:00 last night. I probably could have torn through the entire thing if my laughter hadn't been so loud that it drew both children to the stairs to stare at me.
Amber's book is the perfect blend of funny and sweet. She includes some bad stuff of course, but she very wisely says "even the bad stuff is good stuff when it isn't happening". That totally made sense to me. I hope it makes sense to you too.
There are chapters on (not) sleeping, eating, sickness, poop, language, toys, traveling, before and after kids comparisons, the good stuff and Amber's 50 Crappy Laws of Parenting.
When I read a book to review, I bookmark all that pages that are awesome and I want to make sure I talk about.
I have way too many bookmarks. It's all good. I finally stopped, because when you have a bookmark on every page, the bookmark sort of loses its effectiveness.
Amber has done a great job of documenting the everyday moments in her children's lives, with humor that makes her life seem funny, but demonstrating how much she loves her kids.
Another book that is a must read, whether you are a mom or not. And with Mother's Day only a few weeks away, this is a book that would make a great gift. You can find it pretty much anywhere you buy your books from. I got mine at Amazon (my gift cards are almost gone now, but it was totally worth it).
Once again, I am spending some of my very own cash to give away a copy of this HARDCOVER book to one lucky reader! To enter, leave a comment either here or on my Facebook page. I don't care what you comment on. It could be parenting related, it could be what you had for dinner last night. I don't mind this time. I'm feeling silly. If you comment both places, you get two entries. Winner will be selected at random at 8:00 pm on April 3!
All these opinions are my own. I did not receive a promotional copy or any compensation for this review.
