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Tuesday
Mar082011
Let's Panic About Babies! Is Pretty Twisted, And You Probably Want To Win Your Very Own Copy
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
I was hearing about all of these other people getting their copies of Let's Panic About Babies! already, and I had on my best pouty face about not having mine yet, but nothing, not even a severely protruding lower lip, will speed up shipping to Canada, so I just had to wait it out and hope I got my copy before those babies started high school. Finally, yesterday afternoon, my blessed copy arrived one week after its launch. We Canadians do suffer so.
The first great thing I noticed about Let's Panic About Babies! is that you can't talk! about the book! without using! at least one! exclamation mark! (I used five extra ones, but you can't use zero exclamation marks. It's innately exclamatory!)
The second great thing that I noticed about this book? If you hold the cover up against your face just right, it totally looks like you are going to eat that baby, and not in that cute I-want-to-put-your-feet-in-my-mouth way, either. I look thoroughly psychotic.
(By the way, you might have noticed that I am wearing one of Eden's famous t-shirts under my haute couture red flannel in that photo. This is purely coincidental. I am not obsessed with the authors of this book. For serious.)
Okay, look. I think I've started this review off on the wrong foot. For one thing, you probably weren't even aware this was a review. It is! For another thing, I have painted myself to be a baby-eating psychotic with an Eden Kennedy obsession. I'm not! I'm a perfectly normal human being who likes the authors Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy in a perfectly normal way and who wants to tell you that Let's Panic About Babies! is a perfectly normal book about pregnancy, childbirth, and early babyhood.
Oh, who am I kidding. This book is not a perfectly normal book. It is a perfectly ridiculous book, and it is a perfectly sometimes twisted book, but it is not normal, and this is a good thing, because there is nothing normal about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood.
Some people will try to give you the impression that all of this is very natural and wonderful as a way to convince that all of this is normal. Let me tell you one thing I know from my 38 years of worldly experience: natural is not what we mean when we talk about normal. Natural is lions eviscerating wildebeests. Natural is giant spills of molten rock devouring Pompeii. Natural is spending years of your life knowing that you have someone else's snot or old food or vomit or poo stuck somewhere on your person at all times because you had the wild idea to procreate.
Aaaaand back to the book, because that's why we're here. How about you watch this video trailer to acquaint yourself with the flavour of Let's Panic About Babies! while I go and pour myself some more of that lovely hot, brown juice I call joe?
See? Twisted.
I feel compelled to tell you that I like this book even though I have no babies now nor will I ever. I am the least baby-having person around since some doctors absconded with my uterus coming on four years ago, and yet I still laughed my fool head off until the Palinode demanded to know what was so funny at nearly three in the morning thankyouverymuch, because, as it turns out, anyone can panic about babies. If there's something to panic about, it's definitely babies, and panicking about them is hilarious, if Alice and Eden have anything to say about it, which they do for over 260 ridiculous pages.
What I want to do for you, because this book is worth spreading, and also because Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy should be spre...
That sentence looked like it was going nowhere good.
What I meant to say is that I want to give away one spanky, awesome copy of Let's Panic About Babies!
THE WINNER HAS BEEN PICKED AND THE GIVEAWAY OVER. A VERY BOO HOO TO YOU.
If you would like ONE chance to get your hands on Let's Panic About Babies!, do one of the following. If you would like TWO chances to win, do both of the following:
I will pick picked one lucky person at random on March 15th at midnight and announce announced the winner both here and on Twitter.
While you enthusiastically enter this giveaway and await my announcement of the lucky winner, you can also avail yourself of the full menu of Let's Panic About Babies! charms:
Like them on Facebook
Follow them on Twitter
Check out the Let's Panic! website
Buy the book!
So, get with the commenting and the tweeting. I hope you win!
----------------------------
UPDATE: And the winner is MayB of Buggering Crap Monkies! She's one funny lady by nature, so this is a perfect win.
Thanks for playing!
The first great thing I noticed about Let's Panic About Babies! is that you can't talk! about the book! without using! at least one! exclamation mark! (I used five extra ones, but you can't use zero exclamation marks. It's innately exclamatory!)
The second great thing that I noticed about this book? If you hold the cover up against your face just right, it totally looks like you are going to eat that baby, and not in that cute I-want-to-put-your-feet-in-my-mouth way, either. I look thoroughly psychotic.
(By the way, you might have noticed that I am wearing one of Eden's famous t-shirts under my haute couture red flannel in that photo. This is purely coincidental. I am not obsessed with the authors of this book. For serious.)
Okay, look. I think I've started this review off on the wrong foot. For one thing, you probably weren't even aware this was a review. It is! For another thing, I have painted myself to be a baby-eating psychotic with an Eden Kennedy obsession. I'm not! I'm a perfectly normal human being who likes the authors Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy in a perfectly normal way and who wants to tell you that Let's Panic About Babies! is a perfectly normal book about pregnancy, childbirth, and early babyhood.
Oh, who am I kidding. This book is not a perfectly normal book. It is a perfectly ridiculous book, and it is a perfectly sometimes twisted book, but it is not normal, and this is a good thing, because there is nothing normal about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood.
Some people will try to give you the impression that all of this is very natural and wonderful as a way to convince that all of this is normal. Let me tell you one thing I know from my 38 years of worldly experience: natural is not what we mean when we talk about normal. Natural is lions eviscerating wildebeests. Natural is giant spills of molten rock devouring Pompeii. Natural is spending years of your life knowing that you have someone else's snot or old food or vomit or poo stuck somewhere on your person at all times because you had the wild idea to procreate.
Aaaaand back to the book, because that's why we're here. How about you watch this video trailer to acquaint yourself with the flavour of Let's Panic About Babies! while I go and pour myself some more of that lovely hot, brown juice I call joe?
See? Twisted.
I feel compelled to tell you that I like this book even though I have no babies now nor will I ever. I am the least baby-having person around since some doctors absconded with my uterus coming on four years ago, and yet I still laughed my fool head off until the Palinode demanded to know what was so funny at nearly three in the morning thankyouverymuch, because, as it turns out, anyone can panic about babies. If there's something to panic about, it's definitely babies, and panicking about them is hilarious, if Alice and Eden have anything to say about it, which they do for over 260 ridiculous pages.
What I want to do for you, because this book is worth spreading, and also because Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy should be spre...
That sentence looked like it was going nowhere good.
What I meant to say is that I want to give away one spanky, awesome copy of Let's Panic About Babies!
THE WINNER HAS BEEN PICKED AND THE GIVEAWAY OVER. A VERY BOO HOO TO YOU.
- Leave a comment on this post telling me something that has to do with babies and panicking. I'm sure you've panicked at several points in your life, and I'm also sure that at least one of those incidents was baby-related.
- Post the following tweet on Twitter, complete with hashtag:
What should we panic about? Let's Panic About Babies! http://tinyurl.com/panicaboutbabies #panicaboutbabies
While you enthusiastically enter this giveaway and await my announcement of the lucky winner, you can also avail yourself of the full menu of Let's Panic About Babies! charms:
So, get with the commenting and the tweeting. I hope you win!
----------------------------
UPDATE: And the winner is MayB of Buggering Crap Monkies! She's one funny lady by nature, so this is a perfect win.
Thanks for playing!
Reader Comments (64)
I have entered like five of these comments and have yet to win this book. SADNESS.
Panicking with babies is quite normal, and I was so paranoid about Isobel learning to eat solids that she knew at nine months that if she wanted to get my attention, pronto-style, all she had to do was fake cough like she was choking. TRUE. STORY.
Panic every time, but she was happy.
I'll tell you about panicking! - my "babies" will be home in less than 30 minutes and I am nowhere near done with this cursed analytical essay on Russian History!!
::thud::
//slams head on desk, gives up, accepts the probability of a 'D' in my imminent future
Oh how I wish I'd had THIS book when I was knocked up with my now 4 and 1/2 year old daughter. But the good news is that now I have the chance to win it for one of my many currently preggo friends, two of whom have never had the pleasure of giving birth. Oh, I can't wait for them to have their bodies and brains turned to the same mush mine has become.
[insert maniacal laughter here]
XOXOXO
@Jasperblu
i need this book, not necessarily because i like to panic specifically about babies, but because i like to panic specifically about everything and if there's something that i'm not panicking about that i should be then i need to read a book on it and at least consider it, i think.
oh i don't panic. i just drink the gripe water. lots and lots of gripe water. goes nicely in the hot brown stuff you call joe. why, i barely need to be burped at all anymore!
Babies and panicking...hmm...well I have two kids. They were babies at one point. I've probably done some panicking...although likely not. I don't panic. But I could try and work myself up a bit, just for you.
My kids make me PAnIc. Like when one calls me from school and says she's got some sort of death-virus and needs to come home? So I like, totally panic to catch a bus home to find a car to pick said child up who's apparently just got a sore tummy and some test anxiety? That's friggin panic (transit - seriously makes me panic lol).
Then this whole baby thing... it's panic mixed in with a few ounces of guilt and maybe a quarter teaspoon of pleasure. No wonder I used tobacco as a coping mechanism ;) It used to get me out of the house. Gah. See now I'm panicking about panic.
Anyway, in closing, I would like to read the book but I will most likely buy it anyway. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
There's a lot of panic among me and fellow quasi-infertiles about if/when/how we will be able to get pregnant and have babies. This sounds like something nice and lighthearted to distract us. :-)
I'm currently pregnant with my THIRD. Now is the time to panic, I think. I mean here in 6 months, the kids will out number the parents. (We're already out numbered in wit and intelligence.)
I used to babysit a baby who would cry a lot. And I'd put him down for bed and he would usually cry until he finally fell asleep. However, one day, I laid him down in his crib and he stopped crying immediately. When I tried to close his bedroom door, the door just opened back up slowly as if someone had turned the knob. There was no one in there except the baby who was now looking straight at me from his crib and laughing maniacally.
Needless to say, I panicked as this door opening and closing went on for a few more minutes, as well as the scary laughter of a baby who was probably possessed.
I am 28, and have officially reached a point in my life where AT LEAST 5 people I know are pregnant at any given time. It's somewhat alarming, especially with the advent of Facebook, because ALL THE BABIES. They are taking over the world.
I do not currently have any babies of my own. I'm too scared to let one in my house.
Three babies later, I've panicked a bit in my day. I had a long run of panic when my third kid didn't laugh until much later than he was 'supposed' to. Was he maybe autistic? We made complete asses out of ourselves trying to get him to laugh. Turns out he is just not a fan of slapstick, as he is now 4 and quite normal but he does have a very cerebral sense of humour (for 4). He probably will not think this book is funny at all. I on the other hand am a complete dork for goofy humor and will find it hilarious. His loss.
No, no! I want to know NOTHING MORE about babies! Please! Been there, done that, would like only to hold someone else's once in a while. Please do not enter me in the draw.
And then there's this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG02UeDajiU
I'm waiting till Sean Cullen's book comes out.
:)
One of my first jobs was hotel babysitting. I was asked to bring some friends to babysit for a convention of women realtors - we had a giant room with EIGHT KIDS in it. Thank god I brought three friends.
We did great until we took the kids out to see the view from the top floor and then could only count SEVEN heads. The littlest one - the six month old - we couldn't find him.
OH MY GOD, WE LOST THE BABY.
We tore through the hotel, went everywhere we'd been, frantically asked people everywhere (three wild-eyed barely-teenagers foaming in your face 'HAVE YOU SEEN A BABY??') ran all over, were taking the kids back to the giant hotel room so we could start trying to find the moms (and hopefully the police, although I don't remember thinking about that) when I stopped short at the elevator and Monica banged hard into me and suddenly SHRIEKED...
except it wasn't her. It was the tiny baby she'd had in a front pocket-sling thing the WHOLE TIME.
The moral of the story: BABIES ARE EASY TO PANIC OVER. Also, NEVER HIRE A HOTEL BABYSITTER.
right now i am panicking about babies because i am expecting one. nuff said, right?
I went through many panicky moments in pregnancy that only got worse in the post-birth sleep deprivation haze.
I only wish I'd had more of this genre of humour to go along with the postpartum depression meds. :)
Does panicking because I won't ever get to have babies count?
I do have a story of babies and panic actually. I was in high school and babysitting a 4 year old and a 6 month old all day every day one summer. I was playing with the baby while the mom was in the bedroom getting ready for work. I threw the baby in the air, but we were in a doorway and instead of a "whee" it was a "whomp". The baby started crying and I PANICKED!!! was the baby okay? was I going to be fired? In the end it was all okay.
If I won this book I would pass it along to my friends Laura and Dominic who just had twins on Saturday. I am sure they could use the advice and some laughs as they go through this.
Um, HI! I'm panicking because according to my doctor, my unborn baby is already 7.27 lbs and he's still got about 4 weeks to keep baking and I'M TERRIFIED OF HAVING A GINORMOUS BABY. And today I was panicking. Or, today I'm still panicking. About babies. Or, um, baby. Because there's just ONE in there.
I basically worry that I will break them and/or scar them (it?) for life. I'm much more comfortable with feline and canine babies. And they don't cry. So there's that.
...
My husband held a baby for the first time in about 12 years the other day and he was so worried, and I was egging him on, taking photos and such, and then the adorbs little baby had a poop. In his lap. I captured the horrified look on his face...and I think it set back baby making movements for quite some time.
I'm terrified that I won't have babies and terrified that when I have them I won't like them. Essentially, I'm screwed.
Let's see -- oops, pregnant at 40. 10 year old gets off the bus one day facing my very large belly (and having just seen the "How Babies Are Made" video at school.) Looks at me with total disgust and asks "You and Dad weren't planning to have a baby?" Answer "Ummm.... no?" Next question dripping with disgust "You and Dad just had sex????" Answer "Uhhhhhh.... yeah?" Sadly, head shaking, walking home, fully grossed out, "I didn't think OLD PEOPLE did that!"
I have to take my six year old baby to have a CT scan today. I am totally panicking about that.
Oh, in funnier panicking, when she was three days old I called the doctor on call because she had a temperature of 99.3. That's right. A whole half degree above normal. Really, I did this. And then got mad when the doctor didn't want to help me.
Our kids have a ton of food allergies, so I really know about panic. It's sort of a constant cloud of panic hanging over our heads.
But isn't that true for every parent?
I was throwing up one morning and thinking "Oh shitoshitoshit", so I took my THREE babies to their granny's and went straight to the doctor. When I got back to Granny everyone said "WELL?"
"It's OK!!! I'm just SICK!" Spent the whole day puking but Oh JOY, I wasn't pregnant! Everyone was relieved, I can tell you. My father in law still reminds me about this and cracks up!
Panic and babies? Oh, easy on that one! I panic that I will have no interest in my baby and that I'll want to run away. I panic that it will grow up to be an obnoxious teenager that I'll want to do nothing but hit. I panic that I will turn into one of those mothers that can't talk about anything except her children. I panic that I will get hugely fatter and my husband won't want to come near me ever again (which would at least keep the number of babies to a minimum).
I will do everything you say to do about this book, since I will openly admit my obsession with these authors.
Say my name, see them tremble...yeah, I am the commenter that never leaves.
I LOVE THESE WOMEN.
I want this book. I have my own copy preordered, but I WANT THIS BOOK. Again and again and again.
I am currently NOT panicking about babies, but maybe I should. Hopefully, I will win, then we call all Panic! About Babies! Together! (see what I did there?)
OK.
I am resolved to get this book giveaway. I am going to use mine for a giveaway on my site.
I have tweeted, I have liked on FB, I have followed them on twitter, and I have commented here.I have preordered the book.
I must win. If I dont'??? I'll buy another copy to give away.
No biggie.
xo
My best panic moment is a classic. I was blessed with my mother-in-law taking the kids overnight. My husband went to work at the fire dept, letting me sleep in. A blessing. I woke up at 8:07, 37 minutes after my oldest son usually wakes me up. I walked into his room. He wasn't there. I went to his playroom. He wasn't there. I opened his brother's door, AND NEITHER OF THEM WERE IN HIS ROOM EITHER.
I went running through the house calling for them. I looked outside. As I grabbed my phone to call my husband at work, it all came rushing back to me. Talk about panic.
hahaha
This isn't an entry, just wanted to say that the copy they sent ME only arrived yesterday as well. Canada Post and the USPS need to make peace already. :)
Hmmm.... I often panicked about both my babies bowel movements. Seems silly now, but when you are sleep deprived you will panic a lot.
Also, I panicked when the baby's picture with Santa came out blurry. Again, I blame sleep deprivation.
I had my first son when I was 23 and everything caused me to panic. I would stick my finger under his nose to see if he was still breathing. Now he's four and snores like a full-grown man. No need to panic there.
That video is the most awesome thing I've ever seen.
True honest panic moment with an infant... While I was a nanny for a preschooler, the family had another baby. He was born prematurely. When they brought him home he was required to have this sleep/apnea monitor. Nothing has ever made me panic more than the beep that machine would make to warn you about his lack of breathing. And that thing would go off hourly just because he would wiggle so much the stickies on his chest would let loose. Panic panic panic.
Funny panic... I was in the kitchen. My husband was changing 1 week old Zoe's diaper. He started yelling and screaming and cursing and PANICKING. I ran in expecting something traumatic and possibly life threatening (like blood in her diaper... or sudden death) to discover that Zoe had farted and had squirt a lovely design of breastfed baby poop on the wall. I just about died laughing.
tweet
http://twitter.com/#!/amadisonmom/status/45513040266932224
I panicked about my baby before she was born. She decided to disrupt my perfect vision of having a natural birth by being stubbornly breech.
I panicked about her EVER sleeping in her own bed when at 2.5 she was still in mine. She sleeps every night in her own bed now, at 6 yrs old.
Last week I panicked about her not eating enough when she was sick.
I tweeted you!
i panic ALL THE TIME that because of my terrible parenting skills (well, ok, only semi-terrible, because she is Not Dead Yet), my kid has watched possibly one too many episodes of "phineas and ferb" and it is only a matter of time before she starts building, like, an operational nuclear reactor in the basement. because i am pretty sure our house is not zoned for that.
also, my daughter wants to be a GHOSTBUSTER when she grows up. like, for real. i am doomed.
When my last kid was just a wee little baby, we ended up rushing him to the Emergency Room. He had been having trouble breathing all day, then about 7 or 8 at night, he actually stopped breathing. We got to the Emerg, they rushed us right in (which just about did it for me) and started working on him. He ended up being fine, but it was determined that he probably had asthma and he ended up on a ventilator after that. Very scary.
My panic has to do with the impending arrival of the baby that is currently inside me. Kicking me. Dancing a jig on my bladder. Already disturbing my sleep. Imaging what it will be like when he's on the outside? And I never sleep again. Maybe I'm panicking about sleep more than I'm panicking about babies?
Ummm, I'm 23 weeks pregnant with my first kid. Panic happens about every 6.5 minutes!
Here are two things about panic and about babies (its BOGO panic/baby day)
here is something about panic and babies: babies panic if their boob isn't exactly where they expect it to be exactly when. Your boob that is.
here is another thing: you have to take baby's temperature rectally. Immediately upon insertion the baby will projectile poop. And then it will happen again.
I think people enjoy panicking about babies. Are they sleeping too much? Eating enough? Do they have the right number of dirty diapers? What is this goo they have deposited on my shirt? Why are they crying now!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Did I use enough exclamation points?)
I have a 3 year old, an 8 month old, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Panic is my middle name.
Why haven't I won yet? I keep trying and trying. Well, if I must, I will go out and BUY a copy, but really, winning is so much more fun! PLUS! I will donate my copy to my library b'c we have half the materials budget that we had last year, not that I'm bitter or babbling...
Anyway, I wanna win!
Tweeted too. Just to make sure I'm covered.
http://twitter.com/#!/hipchick73
Panicking... let's see. The first time I really panicked about my first baby was totally awesome. She flopped her floppy self right off the changing table and bumped her softy head on the rocker of the rocking chair and bounced off the floor. I threw up in my mouth a little, and then scooped her up, and pretty much suffocated her whilst calling my husband at work and insisting that he COME! HOME! RIGHT! EFFING! NOW!!!! So naturally he flew home and found us in our bedroom, I was sitting on the bed, looking a beautiful shade of putrid. Olivia was sitting on my lap doing something adorable and annoying. Like laughing.
I panic pretty much every time my baby learns something new... The fact that babies neither move nor talk in the 1st 6 months or so is widely under appreciated.
I usually panic about the possibility of not having babies, does that count? Oh, and also about four year olds who think they are fourteen, except that she also likes to put M & Ms up her nose. (Fourteen year olds don't do that, do they?)
been there, done that and don't want to go back. Having a puppy in my home is bad enough and people conveniently forget that they turn into teenagers and young adults that know how to roll their eyes without actually doing it, so you can't even get angry. I don't never want to read another book on babies. I will admit the picture of you eating the cover of the book was cool.
Okay, thanks, I'm thinking of poopy diapers now.
do grandparents panic??? i would love to win the book to find out...if grandparents don't panic, (and i don't believe for a minute that we don't) i can give the book to my daughter who with a month old baby needs to refine the art of panicking!
You look a little like a baby-eating psychotic with a beard...