This book makes having a baby sound horrendous.
And I'm not being critical of how Heather B. Armstrong approached pregnancy, birth, and child care, but OH. MY. GOD. A dog is quite enough for me, thank you very much. Should I ever weaken and consider pregnancy myself, someone should remind me that I kill about 40 percent of the fish that come into my home and about 80, okay 95, percent of the houseplants.
But about the book, which in case you didn't know, came after her wildly popularly blog, http://www.dooce.com/:
Armstrong is funny, and she's successfully leaped from writing good, humorous blog entries to writing a much longer, but still funny and compelling, book. She carries over an appreciation for writing in all caps and throwing in multiple period when she needs extra emphasis (like just I did in the second paragraph). Her metaphors are hilarious. For example, when her baby is sedated for an MRI, she writes:
She also tries to speak openly about post-partum depression. I say try because - while I admire her for tackling a topic that some might think has a stigma - I would have liked to know more. She went off anti-depressants to get pregnant, but it wasn't clear to me when she started taking them again. Was her post-partum depression exacerbated by her pre-pregnancy depression? What she expecting to feel that depressed and just expected to deal with it, or did it hit her out of left field? And how much did she think was attributable to lack of sleep and the stress of major life changes?
Maybe I'm just nosey, but more details would have helped me (one of the childless 20-somethings who is not yet considering crossing over to the OTHER side - parenthood) understand more of was post-partum depression was about. I already agreed that it was a horrible condition that obviously needed to be treated, even if treatment required a short stay in a mental ward.
Overall, though, I would say the book is great light reading. Good enough that I wouldn't hesitate to read her earlier work, Things I Learned about My Dad (in Therapy). She compiled the collection of essays from several other bloggers, including Alice Bradley (Finslippy) Doug French (Laid Off Dad), Maggie Mason (Mighty Girl), Matthew Baldwin (Defective Yeti), Sarah Brown (Que Sera Sera).
If you've read either books, let me know what you thought.
And I'm not being critical of how Heather B. Armstrong approached pregnancy, birth, and child care, but OH. MY. GOD. A dog is quite enough for me, thank you very much. Should I ever weaken and consider pregnancy myself, someone should remind me that I kill about 40 percent of the fish that come into my home and about 80, okay 95, percent of the houseplants.
But about the book, which in case you didn't know, came after her wildly popularly blog, http://www.dooce.com/:
Armstrong is funny, and she's successfully leaped from writing good, humorous blog entries to writing a much longer, but still funny and compelling, book. She carries over an appreciation for writing in all caps and throwing in multiple period when she needs extra emphasis (like just I did in the second paragraph). Her metaphors are hilarious. For example, when her baby is sedated for an MRI, she writes:
"My baby was drunk. Not just drunk but D.R.U.N.K. She was as drunk as a 16-year-old on prom night who has had a Long Island Iced Tea on an empty stomach and is total denial about how drunk she is."
She also tries to speak openly about post-partum depression. I say try because - while I admire her for tackling a topic that some might think has a stigma - I would have liked to know more. She went off anti-depressants to get pregnant, but it wasn't clear to me when she started taking them again. Was her post-partum depression exacerbated by her pre-pregnancy depression? What she expecting to feel that depressed and just expected to deal with it, or did it hit her out of left field? And how much did she think was attributable to lack of sleep and the stress of major life changes?
Maybe I'm just nosey, but more details would have helped me (one of the childless 20-somethings who is not yet considering crossing over to the OTHER side - parenthood) understand more of was post-partum depression was about. I already agreed that it was a horrible condition that obviously needed to be treated, even if treatment required a short stay in a mental ward.
Overall, though, I would say the book is great light reading. Good enough that I wouldn't hesitate to read her earlier work, Things I Learned about My Dad (in Therapy). She compiled the collection of essays from several other bloggers, including Alice Bradley (Finslippy) Doug French (Laid Off Dad), Maggie Mason (Mighty Girl), Matthew Baldwin (Defective Yeti), Sarah Brown (Que Sera Sera).
If you've read either books, let me know what you thought.
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