Books

I’m on vacation, in beautifulsunnyFloridadearlordhelpmeplease, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy a beautiful book giveaway whilst I’m away. And by beautiful book I mean the new and hilarious STFU Parents by Blair Koenig. If you’ve heard of the Internet, you probably know of the STFU Parents site, but still, when my copy of the book came in the mail I had a split second of “OMG, my kids published a book addressed to their father and me!” before I calmed my nerves and took the anti-paranoia pill that the doctor prescribed.

STFU Parents is funny. Very funny. But it will also make you rock in a corner so you may want to brush up on some of your self-soothing moves.

The book is a compilation of parental Facebook postings– ranging in topics from Baby Showers (did you know parents can throw themselves one? Just add a link to an Amazon wishlist!) to Baby contests (don’t forget to spam your friends to vote for your baby daily!) to Baby Poop (kids are constipated! But sometimes they have diarrhea!) to Momedy (moms are being funny! Mostly all in the exact same way! LMAO!) But what makes this book comedy gold are Koenig’s zingers, so the book is like reading Facebook while sitting on the couch with your smart and funny BFF and rolling your eyes together at the updates.

So, don’t wait and enter the giveaway!

All you have to do is tell me who the book is for- it could be for you, it could be for your oversharing brother-in-law, it could be a baby shower gift for a colleague. That’s it! Just leave me a comment and I’ll pick whoever I like best, I mean, I’ll pick a random winner on April 2nd.

Other rules: Two entries per person. One comment, one for tweeting a link to this giveaway with a #STFUParents hashtag (but leave a comment with the link to the tweet so Motherhood in NYC auditors can verify your entry). I will notify the winner via electronic mail, so make sure to ..er..leave an email address. And also to check your email. You’ll have 24 hours to reply to my email after which time you will magically stop being the winner and become the loser and I’ll pick another winner to take your place.

Good luck! And if you are too exhausted by all these rules, just buy your copy here!

Good luck!

{ 22 comments }

Over the summer, I joined Instagram. If you don’t know from Instagram, congratulations on letting life pass you by. Instagram is an app that lets you take pictures and then use a filter to make it look better or more annoying, depending on your taste. They didn’t have Instagram when we were kids and that’s why we were all so unhappy.

But I’ve been making up for lost time. If you were to follow me on Instagram, for example, you’d see that last week I took a picture of the pattern on my skirt. That’s the kind of picture that is worth more than 2 words. And then I had great news! My 11 year old son was on Instagram too! I hurried over to his account (by clicking over) and was mildly horrified because there were a lot of pictures of cats (not Nicki, thank goodness) with sayings on them like “Make My Day” and other Rambo-esque nonsense.

“What’s with your Instagram feed?” I asked him, getting ready to launch into the dangers of LOLCats admiration.

He shrugged and then made Instagram account private. Which means that I now can’t see it.

This is an outrage and a crime against humanity. How can I monitor his online activities and lovingly parent/mock him if his account is private?

“I’m not comfortable with your having a blocked account that I have no access to,” I told him in what I hoped was my “sincere” voice.

“So send me a follow request,” he responded. As if that would solve anything. Because if I sent him a follow request, he’d probably follow me back and I don’t need him making fun of the photos of my skirt that I post. Or adorable puppies, for that matter.

________________________________________________

Last month I attended a Go Mighty event and met L.A. Campbell, the author of the upcoming Cartboy and the Time Capsule children’s book. I immediately wanted to read it and after a modest period of nagging, hinting and threatening, she sent me an advance copy. It was honestly a treat to read.

From the book’s Amazon page: In the tradition of Diary of a Wimpy Kid comes Cartboy and the Time Capsule by L.A. Campbell, a laugh-out-loud debut novel about sixth-grader Hal Rifkind—unfortunately nicknamed “Cartboy”—and his horribly historic, hilarious year.

Hal hates history class—it literally bores him to tears. But his father is a big history buff, and unless Hal gets a good grade this year, he’ll never get his own room. Sixth grade gets off to a horrible start when history teacher Mr. Tupkin gives the class an assignment to write journals that will be buried in a time capsule at the end of the year. Things get even worse when his dad makes him take his neighbor’s old shopping cart to school, earning him the nickname “Cartboy.” What else could possibly go wrong? Read Hal’s journal to find out!

Filled with photos, drawings, and timelines, Hal’s time capsule journal chronicles a year in the life of the hopelessly hapless Cartboy.

From me: I often think it must be weird for authors when people who’ve read their book say “I could have written that!” because I imagine the response would be “but you didn’t, dumbass, I did!” (Yes, I spend a lot of my time having imaginary conversations with authors. You should hear the one I had with Shakespeare the other day. He’s a bit of a dick.) But as I was reading Cartboy, I kept thinking how similar my sense of humor is to the author’s. I laughed many, many times, and it was a really fun, funny and satisfying read. My 11 year old is reading it now, so he’ll have his own comments eventually, but for now you’ll just have to take my word for it. Enjoy!