This is disclosure time. I’ve been friends with Amanda Cox for a couple of years. I couldn’t get to her book launch so a mutual friend got a copy for me and she very kindly made certain to pass on my request to have it signed upside down, so my copy is signed by the author, but signed my way. I don’t normally worry about author signatures so I figured it had to be different, the thing is, you can’t actually tell as it’s on a blank page!
Anyway, enough rubbish. This book is a diary, it’s the diary of a young mother with boys who don’t do what they’re told and have to get to kinder or school. It’s the diary of a young mother who also runs a business from home and is frantically trying to fit in enough time for the business, the shopping, the housework, the kids and hopefully find there is enough time at the end for her husband and herself, some time out away from the kids and also some sleep. Sleep? I hear her asking, what on earth is sleep? Actually, she’d be rather more colourful with her words, but I don’t use those words.
Anyway, Cox details the highs and lows of having and parenting three boys. She starts at the beginning when the eldest is born and ends eight years later some months after the youngest is born. They are unexpurgated and include her swearing as she can’t find her keys, swearing as she is told off yet again as she appears to be doing the wrong thing with her baby, swearing as she…sorry, she doesn’t swear all the time. Cox tells us to trust ourselves and our instincts as there will always be someone telling parents they’ve done the wrong thing. She includes so many doubts she has about doing the wrong thing and wondering how it will affect her children and will they be totally screwed up by her lack of parenting.
Cox basically tells us what we’re thinking about our own parenting. She is not afraid to let fly with sarcasm and wit to tell people how she feels about being a parent and in the process tells us how we’re thinking. I had my kids 10 years before her and I have girls rather than boys but she seems to have a knack for telling me what I was thinking and feeling when they were the same age.
She also details the darker side of parenting, the side that nobody wants to know about. Cox tells us what really happens when she’s got PND (Post Natal Depression), how she can’t make coffee as she can’t remember if she put the coffee in or the sugar in, how she sometimes can’t work the coffee machine and ends up with coffee everywhere, or maybe just hot water when she’s completely forgotten the coffee. She talks candidly about being pregnant with her second and third children and how the morning sickness can totally take over your life.
I have so much admiration for Cox, she has managed to bring up three boys, study, run a business and deal with the vissisitudes of life with style, wisdom, sarcasm and humour. Her business supports mums and gives them a haven where they can be themselves. She runs a website with a forum, she creates and sells goods, writes blogs, she speaks on TV and radio as well as organising awesome nights out. You may be able to get a copy of the book here if you’re lucky, last time I heard there were very few copies left.
Warnings:
Laughter may happen at any time
Tears will spill over
There are many ‘rude’ words which sometimes add to the laughter
If you’re old, like me, you’ll definitely need good light and reading glasses as the print is very small