Dorianne Sager - Baby Steps, The Vancouver Sun  
 

Book

Baby is a Four-Letter Word: Surviving the First Two Years of ParenthoodBaby is a Four-Letter Word

Surviving the First Two Years of Parenthood

After a day of meltdowns, tantrums and bite marks, I asked my mother if I was screwing up as a parent. "Oh honey," she said and gave me a reassuring hug. "Not if you stop now."

Baby is a Four-Letter Word: Surviving the First Two Years of ParenthoodCapitalising on the overwhelming response to Dorianne Sager's popular Vancouver Sun column, Baby Steps, Baby Is A Four-Letter Word brings together in one book the columns that had parents around the country laughing and crying at the absurdities of life with a baby. With new previously unpublished material, Sager's hilarious insight and her frank and witty reflections on motherhood pick up where Erma Bombeck left off. Baby Is A Four-Letter Word presents a new generation of parents with a consistently smart, funny and engaging voice that perfectly articulates the joys and pitfalls of parenthood today.

Baby is a Four-Letter Word: Surviving the First Two Years of Parenthood is published by Key Porter Books and can be purchased online at Amazon.ca, Munro's Books, McNally Robinson, or Chapters.indigo.ca.

Note from the Author

No one ever tells you that while you can spend nine months preparing for parenthood, once the baby actually arrives you won’t have a clue what to do with it. Somewhere between the birth canal and the delivery room the instruction manual gets lost and you're just supposed to know how to be a parent. Luckily, everyone else around you is an expert, and you soon find yourself fielding advice from your family, your in-laws, your doctor, your friends, the lady at the grocery store, and the pizza delivery guy.

But Baby Is A Four-Letter Word is different. I don't have any expert advice on parenting to give; if I did I would be sleeping more than four hours a night. What I do have to offer is the ability to laugh about these early years: the endless crying, the pails of dirty diapers, the pains of breastfeeding, the effects of sleep deprivation, and the peaks of utter helplessness and pure joy that make up the mess of motherhood. Because surviving this job requires a good sense of humour - or a good supply of Valium. Besides, no amount of information can ever prepare you for motherhood. It's a precarious, exhilarating, heartbreaking, frustrating, hilarious ride. And while everyone has their opinions about child-rearing, the one thing we all share in common is the need to laugh - at ourselves and at our children - because laughter is what keeps us going when the realities of parenthood start to feel overwhelming.

Credits

With a foreword by Ann Douglas
Book Cover Design: Marijke Friesen
Book Cover Illustration: Francis Blake