From Here to Maternity: The Education of a Rookie Mom

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My Stroller, Myself
If there's one thing they drum into your head when your due date nears, it's this: you can't take your baby home from the hospital without a properly installed car seat. But as long as that's all set, the kid's yours, even if you prove irresponsible

A side-splittingly funny look at the transition to motherhood-and the little-known truths new mothers really ought to know.

When Beth Teitell first learned that she was pregnant, her mind raced with important questions: Does a handful of Milk Duds count as a serving of calcium? If I sneak a Diet Coke when no one's looking, will it harm my baby? Where does Gwyneth Paltrow buy her maternity clothes, and is $95 way too much to spend on a cotton T-shirt if you're not routinely-okay, ever-photographed by paparazzi? Then, just as she was getting into the swing of things, the unthinkable happened-a baby showed up. And then the trouble really began.

From Here to Maternity offers a hilarious, highly perceptive look at the often surreal experience of becoming a mom, exposing the delightful absurdities of modern parenting that your doctor will fail to warn you about and your fellow mothers will be too embarrassed to admit. From coping with SUV envy (that is, Stroller Utility Vehicle envy) to learning "The Rules" for dating other mommies in the playdate social network, Teitell explores what it's like to be a mother in a culture responsible for $700 Bugaboo Strollers and Baby Einstein, and tells it like it is-what to sing if you don't know any lullabies (the Brady Bunch theme is a perfectly valid choice), how to avoid scarfing down your toddler's animal crackers when his little back is turned, and how to keep the most important person in the family (your nanny) happy-with consummate style and laugh-out-loud irreverence.

A winning, utterly original look at the lighter side of the most serious job on earth, From Here to Maternity is the ultimate treat for mothers everywhere-second only to a hot bath and the phone number of a good babysitter.

BETH TEITELL is the lifestyle columnist at the Boston Herald and a contributor to the public radio program Marketplace. She has been quoted on NPR's Morning Edition, and her work has been featured in Working Mother and in the anthologies May Contain Nuts: A Very Loose Canon of American Humor, and Nesting: It's a Chick Thing. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children.

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