Hybrid Mom Insider

Crib Notes, a candid look at conception, pregnancy and parenthood, is a terrific manual for any pregnant mom, new mom, or frankly, any woman thinking about becoming a mom. KellyPerotti writes about all subjects pregnant and new motherhood from her experience and research, in a lighthearted, honest, and most generously non-judgmental way. The result gives women a darned clear picture of what pregnancy and new motherhood is all about, alleviating the fear of the unknown and offering suggestions that may make the ride a bit easier.

I am all about honesty and help for new moms, no judgment and humor, so I practically devoured the book. Perotti’s fast facts were especially entertaining. For example, did you know that “there is a higher chance for conception if the woman has an orgasm” p.15 Woo-Hoo! or that some pregnant women have a “craving for dirt or metal signaling an iron deficiency?” p.27 In addition to these interesting tidbits, the real-life examples and advice are the book’s strong point.Perotti’s chapter entitled “Baby Blues and Lasagna” was particularly good on this front, my favorite chapter of the book.

Perotti was gracious enough to answer a couple of my nosy questions. Please enjoy her insights.

Kelly, you mentioned in the book that you weren’t happy with the selection of “mom” books out there on the book shelves, what does your book have that the other books lacked?

I really tried to mix personal experience and facts. I didn’t want it to just be “Kelly’s story.”  Each pregnancy is so different and I wanted that to come through.  As I said in the book, I found a lot of other books to be too textbook-y, too preachy or (oppositely) to have such a carefree and life-as-usual approach.  I didn’t really need the clinical information, and didn’t care for the almost regretful tone of the others.  That being said, there are some great books out there…they just weren’t the ones I initially chose.

Honesty is a very popular tool that mom- writers and mombloggers are using these days.  How do you think this honesty is going to help new moms?

Being a mom is hard! Although I doubt any of us would permanently trade it, I’d be surprised to hear of a mom who hasn’t- at least momentarily- longed for the simplicity of their pre-mommy days.  If presented with picture perfect images of motherhood during her entire pregnancy, a new mom will feel like a failure the first time breastfeeding doesn’t work or the baby doesn’t instantly adapt to the schedule imposed upon him.  Having a realistic impression, and the understanding that other moms feel the same way will help much more than being spoon-fed idealistic scenarios.  I personally love the direction that we’re moving in- let’s get real!

Can you tell us a bit about your publishing experience?  Do you have any advice for those interested in publishing?

I actually didn’t really start out intending to write a book. Although I haven’t kept a journal since about 6th grade, I did jot down little notes, feelings, and happenings during each of my pregnancies. When my younger son was about 9 months old, I started to organize and expand on these little notes and, before I knew it, I had pages and pages. I did some research to validate my beliefs and experiences, and it magically turned into a book-length file. (In order to keep the price down - based on page count-I actually took out several pages!)

Due to time, money, and patience (actually the lack of those), I went the self-publishing route. I worked with Xlibris, a company that I knew a little about before starting my project. We consistently beat the standard timeliness they had laid out and, due to monthly specials that they offer, I was able to upgrade to a much higher package than I thought I could afford. The distribution is a little slow (for my impatient self) but that’s the nature of on-demand printing.

I’d recommend self-publishing to anyone interested in getting their book out there. In addition to the satisfaction and pride you feel, it gives you an idea of how your book will sell, and possibly some qualified experience and quantified success that you can add to your resume or your bid to a publisher. It’s surely not a get-rich-quick plan, but the relative affordability makes it hard to find an argument against just going for it.

Thanks for you insights, Kelly. Best of luck with Crib Notes!

I picked up my husband’s May 2009 issue of Best Life, primarily because Ryan Reynold’s was on the cover. I was curious what Ryan had to say in an article entitle “Happiness is a Choice” by John Mather. Ok, you got me, I really wanted to see if he had anything to say about his marriage with Scarlett Johansson. OK, you got me again, I admit it, I’m a fan. Have you seen Just Friends or Van Wilder? Reynolds is a very funny guy. Although, Reynolds wasn’t exactly funny in his interview, he had some great advice for moms.

“Happiness takes balls,” Ryan says, “In order to be happy, you have to be willing to be disliked. In order to respect yourself, you have to be unafraid to disappoint others.” Wow, he said a mouthful there. I don’t know if Ryan understands the applicability to moms but there is applicability. As a Mom, you have more expectations than almost any person in the entire world. You are expected to do the hardest job in the world (for no money and little appreciation) and love it and smile the whole time you are doing it, and not complain. Motherhood is the one job in the world where on the surface you are supposed to look serene and content at all times and never, ever complain or ask for help. As a result, many moms don’t ask for help, feel alone, suffer from frustration and fail to live life to the fullest.

Ryan Reynold’s has shared a solution with us. Moms, listen to Ryan. Ask for the help that you need, take time away from your kids, demand your needs. In other words, “be willing to be disliked “(or talked about) and “be unafraid to disappoint others” by demanding what you want based on your ideals and values.

Let me give you a very simple example. In my blogpost on Finding Some “You” Time, I suggest hiring a cleaning person. Many moms have the responsibility of the kids, the house, and in many case an outside job. Yet, they refuse to hire a cleaning person, even every other week, to help them out. Why do they refuse to hire a cleaning person? The reasons for not hiring a cleaning person are many but if I were Richard Dawson of “Family Feud” fame, and I had to pick the number one answer it would probably be:

A cleaning person is a luxury we can’t afford.

If we employ Ryan Reynold’s advice we can shoot down this argument as follows:
Is $40 dollars a week too much to spend for extra time with your family, less frustration, and less fighting with your kids and/or your partner? Don’t you still have a hundred other tasks in addition to the heavy duty cleaning? Don’t you deserve some help? Who doesn’t need some help? Try looking at things from different perspective when it comes to your budget / finances.

For example, do you spend $40 on a take-out dinner every week, a night at the movies, or a premium cable channel? Skip it for the cleaning. Could you stand eating hard boiled eggs sandwiches a few times every two weeks to save $40 a week in grocery bills? Eat ‘um for the cleaning? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that twice a week your bathrooms and floors are getting a good cleaning, that your home/apartment are maintained on a regular basis? Would you live without heat? Having cleaning help could be that important to your life.

Further, who cares if the neighbors and your family talk about you behind your back - who cares? Reynold’s tells us, “be willing to be disliked”and” be unafraid to disappoint others”, they’ll get over it. This is your life we are talking about. Start to think about the things you really need in life for a change. Start living for yourself. The effects on the rest of your family, on your kids, and on your partner will be palpable!

Let me know what you think of Ryan’s advice. Am I way off base? On the other hand, do you have any sure-fire methods for budget cutting that can open up the budget for a cleaning person?

Every once in a while, someone writes something so honest about motherhood that it just about brings me to tears. Last night, I read a blog that started my waterworks. Stephanie Wilder-Taylor, author of my two favorite books, Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay and Naptime is the New Happy Hour and one of my favorite bloggers at Baby on Bored wrote about a decision that she has made to stop even the most casual of drinking and why. Please read it for yourself here at Baby on Bored.

The truth is, motherhood is so hard that mothers from the beginning of time, find ways to cope. One of the these ways is to have a drink in the evening to “take the edge off.” As Wilder-Taylor points out in her blog, “taking the edge off”, can lead to some dangerous behavior.
Baby on Bored does a great job of telling you why she has decided to put down the glass of wine. I would like to point out that the reasons for picking up the glass of wine are very, very real. Motherhood, especially of young children is very, very difficult and Moms need a break! I think we need to start demanding some time away to get our heads together so that escapes such as alcohol, cigarettes, pills, or pounds of chocolate cake are not necessary.

Moms, start with the demanding of time for yourself. Check out my blog post on finding some time for yourself and DO it! If you have any questions or criticisms of this plan of mine, let me know. Let’s hash it out and figure out some answers. Respond to Baby on Bored and show her your support. We all need to stick together on this one.

The Schwenksville MOMS Club asked me to talk about ways that a Mom can get some time for herself - quite a challenge when you have so many folks counting on you. From my own experience and the the experiences of hundreds of moms I have interviewed over the years, I compiled five ways for Moms to get some “You” time and some tips/comments for accomplishing each goal. Hope this helps. Remember my motto: When Mom is happy, the family is happy. Please write me to add some of your own ways that you get “You” time. (Try saying that 3 times fast, “ways you get you time, ways you get you time, ways you get you time”) We need all the help we can get. I will post your suggestions in a blog post.

1. Hire a sitter:

• Use word of mouth to find a sitter
• Pay well (or as well as you can)
• Expect only childcare (that way you won’t be disappointed)
• Keep the family for the emergencies, find sitters that are NOT your relations

2. Hire a Cleaning Person

• This is a great time to get a deal
• Use word of mouth
• Keep it to yourself
• Bargain money w/ immediate needs (ie. pay for just what you need the most)

3. Trade Off with a Friend

• You watch mine, I”ll watch yours

4. Part-time job

• No better way to get a break
• Way easier than staying home all day
• Advantages: spending money, power, independence, new clothes, attention, etc
• Not strictly a financial decision

5. Volunteer

• No better way to get a break
• Way easier than being home all day
• Networking can lead to job in the future
• Not strictly a financial decision
• Meets goal of “giving back”

I will be talking in more detail about these ideas to get “You” time in the blog posts coming up. In the meantime, tell me what you think, too. I want to pass as many suggestions around as I can to help moms.

I recently finished two terrific summer reads.  I love romance novels that are fast-moving and have unbelievable descriptions of romance. All of Me by Lori Wilde and Mating Rituals of the North American Wasp by Lauren Lipton have both.

In All of Me, the writing is so steamy you may need to take a break from the book and fan your face for a while. The writing is not sleazy, mind you, simply steamy. JillianSamuels has been unlucky in love. She is forced to make a major change in her life by leaving her job and moving to a cabin in the country that an old friend has bequeathed to her. Once she arrives, she finds there is already an occupant. Her friend’s ex son-in-law, Tuck, thinks the cabin belongs to him. The two go at it, amidst some interesting characters in the town that add flavor to the book. You can probably imagine what happens, but getting there is half the fun. This is a great vacation read!

Mating Rituals of the North American WASP grabs you in the very first pages. Peggy Adams thinks she has her life pretty well figured out. She’s engaged, living in NY, working alongside her best friend in the soap store that they own, minding her own business. Abachelorette party for another girlfriend in Las Vegas turns Peggy’s life upside as she makes a startling discovery. First, there’s a man in her bed.  Second, he is her new husband. You have to read the book to figure out how Peggy gets out of this one. Lipton keeps her readers guessing as the story twists and turns.  Will Peggy come to terms with what she really wants in life? You’ll enjoy finding out.  Happy reading!

If you’ve got a Father in your life, Steve Doocy’s book Tales From the Dad Side is the perfect father’s day gift. Doocy cleverly combines his own life story as a kid with similar stories with his own kids as a Dad. The result is a well-written, funny, tender look at fatherhood from the guy’s point of view. As a writer for new moms, I particularly like Doocy’s honesty and explanations as to why fathers do and see things a bit differently from moms. I now feel enlightened at my own husband’s take on fatherhood that I had been unable to understand until now.

Steve Doocy has always been special to me. No, I don’t personally know the man, but he was present at my engagement! Funny story. My now-husband, Joe, and I celebrated every anniversary from the day we started dating in NY on Dec 22nd. Every year we would try to experience something new in the city, and in 1989, we ended up in the studio audience of Steve Doocy’s then-new show “House Party.” The producers of the show asked the audience for some questions for the medical expert they had on the show. For some inexplicable reason, my then-boyfriend, raised his hand and was picked to be on the show with Doocy, leaving me alone in the studio audience while watching the show.

Funny part was, Joe had left the engagement ring he planned to surprise me with later, on the chair next to me the whole time he was waiting in the green room and subsequently on the show. The whole time he was gone he was panicked that I would find the ring or that it would get lost. Luckily, the ring stayed where it was, in his jacket on the seat next to me. After the show and a few blocks down the street at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, my husband proposed and I bewilderingly said yes. A couple weeks later, we watched Joe on House Party with Doocy. The sweat pouring down Joe’s face had new meaning beside ordinary stage fright. The marriage has lasted 18 years, House Party and Doocy, not so long, but luckily Doocy can be seen every morning on Fox & Friends.

Check out Tales From the Dad Side and enjoy learning a new side of Steve Doocy and a new side of fatherhood, it will be time well-spent. PS. Doocy’s “Linda Evans” story and the “holy swig heard round the parish” story had me bent over with laughter.

Author, Tana French has a unique talent in today’s literary world, a writing talent that combines a terrific story line, with great character development and simply superior writing. I lapped up every beautiful sentence written in her book, The Likeness and I can’t wait for more. While I loved, In The Woods, The Likeness, unbelievably, is even better.

Cassie, a detective we met in In The Woods, is biding her time in the Domestic Violence Department instead of the Murder unit where she clearly belongs. Nothing, however, could tempt her to go back to working with her old boss, Frank, in Undercover until she gets an offer she can’t refuse. A murder victim, who looks eerily like Cassie, has taken on one of Cassie’s former undercover identities. She must go back to Undercover and try to solve the murder if she wants her life back.

While Undercover, Cassie finds herself torn between the job she is committed to doing and the new life she finds among the murdered girl’s housemates. This beautifully written mystery  keeps the reader on his/her toes as is French’s style. French’s use of “backflash” (I think this is a word I created which basically means that she is telling the story in hindsight but only revealing certain pieces of her emotions as she tells the story to clue the reader into her future state of mind - did that make any sense at all?) nudging readers to “pay attention” is particularly effective. Sit back, relax, and enjoy! Can’t wait for the next Tana French Offering. Any Tana French fans out there? Let me know.

I am very lucky to receive all kinds of interesting books to review. This week has been no exception as I received “Obama: The Historic Journey, Young Readers Edition” on my doorstep. Put together by the New York Times, this beautifully illustrated book chronicles the journey of our 44th president from his birth to his first months as the President of the United States. The book cleverly introduces us to Obama and his extended family, first, where we learn his personal heritage and his upbringing in both Hawaii and for a brief time Indonesia. We learn a bit about his family in Hawaii on his mother’s side and his family in Kenya on his father’s side. As a youngster in Hawaii, we learn that Obama had some issues coming to terms with his white and African-American heritage. We learn that Obama’s Mom and Dad were both pretty strict and pushed for the best effort from Obama - a sentiment with which most young readers can relate.

The book chronicle’s Obama’s career as well as his relationship with his wife, Michelle Obama. The personal side of Obama’s decision to run for president are most revealing, especially his consideration of family issues in order to make his decision. The coverage in the book of the political journey from primary to convention to election are pretty powerful. I especially like where both candidate’s political positions are outlined as well as the definitions of the political terms that were so often batted round during election season, specifically the role of delegate and super-delegate in determining primary candidates.

Obama’s law career, and his early professions as a lawyer and a community organizer as well as his place in Chicago politics ending with his election in the Illinois State Senate are covered. The book includes many amazing shots from the campaign including Obama’s Presidential acceptance speech in Grant Park and some great behind the scenes info in the days leading up to and including the Inauguration. I enjoyed reading the book and learning some new things about our President, his family, and his incredible journey to the Presidency.

The part of the book, I didn’t enjoy, however, was the commentary on Sarah Palin’s candidacy. Having followed the election, closely, I found the comments on Sarah Plain’s candidacy gratuitously biased. The author’s incorrect description of Palin’s experience, her convention speech and her media exposure were also off base. For a book that celebrates our new President’s ability to rise above race, it seems distasteful to defame the candidacy of the second female to ever achieve the vice-presidential candidacy. I believe the author could have done a more impartial reporting of Gov Palin’s candidacy.

That one issue aside, however, “Obama, the Historic Journey” is a worthwhile and fascinating read for young readers everywhere. The journey of Obama proves in his own words that “If there’s anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible: who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

I need to see the tape of when Ryan Seacrest announces Kris Allen as the winner of American Idol. I was so surprised that I failed to catch Kris’s original response to hearing he was the winner. I was expecting Adam Lambert to win up until the very end. I wonder if Adam thought he was going to win, too. My husband was sure Kris was going to win. He even felt that Kris won by many, many votes.

Maybe Kris is more mainstream. Maybe Adam is too “out there” with the nail polish, and the tongue thing, and the high-note singing. Many today feel that Adam is actually better off in the runner-up Idol spot. It affords him all the exposure and freedom to pick the recording contract he wants, outside the confines of the American Idol organization. Could be.

In any case, I’m happy. You all know I am a big Kris fan, especially after his Falling Slowly performance. Check out his live performance below. If you had any questions about Kris Allen, talent, listen to his version of this song.

Let me know your thoughts on the American Idol final.

I can’t believe it! All my worrying yesterday was for nothing. Kris Allen made it through to the American Idol finals! Hurray! Too bad for the M & M company, I didn’t need to eat a single candy-coated chocolate last night. I did feel a little guilty and a bit sorry for Danny Gokey especially considering my blog post yesterday. I was a little sorry to see Danny go, but someone has to go and if I had to choose it had to be Danny.

I had an inkling that Kris might have won after the his home visit to Conway, AR was shown. The show seemed to give Kris Allen a bit more air time, or maybe that was just my imagination. After Kris was announced as safe, the look on the faces of the judges, Randy and Kara, in particular, was priceless. Were they really that surprised to see Kris picked? They shouldn’t have been, although they did whatever was in their power to advance Danny Gokey. Oops, there I go again when I promised I would be more kind to Danny.

Deep breath. Now, no matter what happens I’ll be happy. Kris or Adam - it’s all good.