May 18

Written by:
5/18/2009 2:08 PM 

Co-authored by the bestselling radio and television personality Sam Cowen, this book emerged from the authors’ hilarious e-mails to each other while housebound with their newborn babies, and grew into an ongoing dialogue on motherhood and all it entails: from pregnancy, childbirth and weight gain to toddler sex education, kiddies’ parties, and how to reclaim the marital bed for oneself and one’s partner.
Interspersed with these e-mails are their letters of advice to readers of their column in Your Baby magazine and contributions by experts in every conceivable field, from GPs to dieticians.
With wicked wit and frank, down-to-earth advice, these two best friends offer a fresh perspective on motherhood that will keep the reader chuckling from beginning to end.

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Review By - Lauren Tamela Roman: Rating: 4/5

  

Irreverent you might think? What a strange title for a book based on motherhood? Immediately filtering your mind to words like disrespect & unholy.

Well Sam & Lee provide quite an ironic anthology based on this term.

One of these recurring themes is that of our insecurities as new moms heading into motherhood. We are all guilty of delving into the many advices of our predecessors & quick fix books that we can get off any book shelve, hoping to find something that will put our minds to rest, only to find that yet another book has not helped you or your baby along, & with the help of Sam & Lee bringing this across very clearly & humorously they show us in this book just how much of a given it is that no book or any person wanting to sell their product will ever really give you the cons, of what they are wanting you to buy.

This book is fun in all aspects it teaches you about you & the very things that you thought only happened to you. What’s more is that It makes you feel better knowing that even the two very successful woman who’s shows & books on motherhood that we watch & read very religiously every single week also experience the same things that you & I feel or felt guilty about with our children. Things that we can only keep in our thoughts. Well look no further & forget your guilt, because these two ladies will have you Gob smacked & giggling inside as just how true your guilt is. Also providing you & I with insight from top revered experts in the field, with excellent appraisal, from a new born baby to a toddler going to play school or simply helping you naming your children’
s private parts (Yikes!)J.

You will come to find that Lee is a bit of a pessimist but also very flamboyant, fun, very loving & at times or a lot of the time a bit demented. But who can blame her if she’s a mother of twins! J

Sam is however the optimist not falling short of pessimism herself, but its interesting & funny of course to see how these two ladies carry one another & laugh at each others misfortunes.

In a nutshell, if Lee’s house were to be burning she’d be the one to only grab her valuables i.e jewellery, paintings, glassware, etc, & Sam would be on the phone with her telling her to calm down to try & selvage her most revered valuables but at the same time to try & grab the paper work of her house (which would be very important & valuable) & then she’
d tell her in a clam tone of voice to shut up & ask her “ Lee did you take the kids?” & Lee’s response would be “I forgot the kids, I forgot the kids!” (Lets hope she doesn’t ever J).

Fun, fun & more fun, it’s a definite must read for all moms who have babies to very young children. I would read this book any day over any newspaper or book that has never helped with the quick fixes of motherhood!

Enjoy.

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Review By - Lianne Petersen: Rating: 4/5

  

It’s a good read for new moms and moms with toddlers.

I’ve browsed through the beginning of the book and found myself relating to some of the emotions that other mothers have gone through, depression being one of them.

My baby was 7 weeks prem, weighed 1.37kg at birth and spent 5 weeks in hospital.

There he was fed & turned every 3 hours, day and night and during the day I was giving him Kangaroo Care and everything had to be recorded (yes he even had a poo chart!)

For 5 weeks that was his routine (as mentioned on page 36) which meant that when I brought him home I had to wean him out of being on my chest for the whole day which was really hard.

I can’t tell you how important routine is in a child’s life, yes its boring to some but children need it.  Now on the rare occasion that my hubby and I go out, we see kids walking around with their parents, and I think wow, my one would’ve been crying and asking me to go home so that he could go and sleep in his own bed all because he has a nighttime routine….

Don’t even mention the Potty training section pg 83 – my kid refuses point blank to go sit on the toilet – he’ll first do the deed then he’ll come tell me – I’m going to try one of their suggestions and get him to aim at a piece of toilet paper, maybe it works…..

The weight-loss is a sore point, I have lost some of the baby fat but it has been hard trying to keep it off. I’m one of those woman who just has to look at the food to put on weight, so I’m going to try some of Dr Jeske Wellmans tips on page 164,

instead of paying lots of money to join the gym, I’m going to start using my son as “weights”.  Turn his playtime into mommy’s gym time, that way we both get to spend more time together.

I have a very fussy eater, and almost every evening I battle to get my son to eat whatever’s on his plate.  If anyone should ask him what he wants to eat he’ll tell them mm..mm (translated – MacDonalds). I jokingly told my husband one day while I was pregnant  that we shouldn’t eat such a lot of MacD’s because one day the baby would start eating it when he was old enough and true to my word, he does.

And then in the book (pg 172) it says “that research shows that food preferences are influenced by the experiences in the very earliest stages of life, even as far back as while we are still in the womb!’

Yes, he loves his veggies, rice, pasta’s & grated cheese it’s the meats that I struggle with. If I tell him that its soccer food, and if he eats it all up, he’ll be a very good soccer player one day. He’ll eat and all through the meal he’ll tell me what a good soccer player he’s going to be…… Children!!!

I really can go on and on about all the topics in the book but I won’t .
It really is a book that all new moms should read, its good, its entertaining, it deals with day-to-day situations and It’s all in one book.

I’ll be reading it properly when I have some more me-time……………

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