Robin talks about the funny (if sometimes disheartening) aspects of childbirth, breastfeeding, vacations with family, carpool pickup lines, grocery shopping with kids, and talking to kids about sex – she even finds the humor in such normally painful topics as postpartum depression and stomach flu.
The stories are real and from the heart, frequently laugh-out-loud funny but never without a touch of serious intensity to them. This is a mother who, whatever doubts and dismaying moments she endures, obviously really, really loves her kids and her husband, and would do anything for them. The author manages to combine old-fashioned Southern charm with a very modern perspective, and her wry and lively humor can make vomit funny. Any parent can empathize with, and laugh with, the author’s efforts to help her oldest daughter to adjust to kindergarten, to keep her middle child from setting fire to the kitchen, or to find a way to nurse her youngest in the car without unstrapping her from her carseat. Mind you, the book isn’t all about the jokes – there are a couple of stories which are far more somber, and the last of them could make the most coldhearted reader weep.
This is not really a book for the squeamish; if you have difficulty coping with mentions of body fluids, the smell of “boob sweat”, or frank references to reproductive organs, childbirth, and youthful potty issues, you should not read this book. (If you have difficulty coping with these things, though, you are probably not her target audience anyway.)
Parents, particularly those with the strength to laugh at themselves (and the schadenfreude to laugh at other parents), will thoroughly enjoy this book; that is, if they can find enough peace and quiet to read it.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader