Book
Baby
is a Four-Letter Word
Surviving the First Two Years of Parenthood

Capitalising
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With new previously unpublished material, Sager's hilarious insight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