I Wear the Maternity Pants in This Family » (Large Print Edition)

SUSAN KONIG and her comedian-husband, Dave, host a daily talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio's Catholic channel called Speak Now. She has been a staff writer for The Washington Post Style section, an editor at Seventeen, and a columnist for the New York Post. Her work has appeared in such publications as Travel + Leisure, Ladies' Home Journal, Parade, and Us and she is also a columnist for Catholic Digest and National Review Online. She lives with her family in the Hudson Valley.

It was September, and humorist Susan Konig had just put her youngest child on the school bus with his brother and sister and thought, "Wow, my life is really going to change now. All three kids in school full-time. For the first time in a decade I ll have my days to myself! I ll write another book, get to the gym four times a week, run for political office, save the baby seals . . ." Almost immediately, she started throwing up. Around the clock.

She knew the drill. She was definitely pregnant . . . with her fourth child . . . and about to turn forty-three.

Time to break out the big pants again.

While Susan thought that the next chapter of her and her husband s lives involved making plans for their impending child-free, swinging middle-aged-dom, instead she s back to two A.M. feedings. Meanwhile her tween daughter is receiving her first phone calls from . . . boys! And in between this twelve-year-old and the newborn are two rambunctious sons, eight and five.

So it s training wheels and training bras; first dance, last diaper; Miss Clairol and Ben & Jerry. Will Susan ever get back into shape? And what shape was that, exactly? Will she be the oldest mom at preschool in a few years? Will she survive that long? And will she and her husband cope with a national radio show that brings their disorganized household to the whole country?

Acclaimed humorist Susan Konig follows her successful debut, Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road (and Other Lies I Tell My Children), with this charming, hilarious, and realistic account of being a mom. After all, it s a big job---and it requires big pants.

Publishers Weekly

In this witty collection of motherhood tales, Konig (Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road) recalls waving good-bye to her third child as he got on his first school bus. After three children, she was looking forward to some daytime peace and quiet-only she felt an all-too-familiar surge of nausea. At the suburban ob-gyn's office, the way they stared at her, "you'd think Grandma Moses" had walked in, so she retreated to her old city doctor, who acted like pregnant-over-40 was no big deal. Her husband and daughter and two sons cheerfully welcomed the newest family member-after all, "there's always room for another baby-kind of like Jell-O." In 45 vignettes, Konig shares episodes of family life-singing to baby, sibling rivalry, Little League ups and downs. Such familiar turf is often more poignant than funny, although when she reaches deeper into her family's idiosyncrasies, she can be hilarious. Her husband, for instance, is an amusingly obsessive neighborhood wood scavenger; still, it took them so long to hook up their wood stove properly that their baby "smelled like a campfire." Some sketches, like the one where Konig's figuring out her sons' Tamagotchi virtual pets, are surprisingly dated. But in the great tradition of Erma Bombeck, Konig makes it okay to be a little retro. (Aug.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Acknowledgments     11
Prologue: The Mother of All Mother's Days     13
Make Room for Baby     21
Dad's Nickel Trick     28
A Slightly Busy Week     32
No Surprises     39
The Tot Arrives     45
Enjoy the Show     49
Beta Moms and Gamma Dads     53
Is Your Refrigerator Running?     57
Ten Days or Ten Years: The Learning Curve     61
Comfy Pants = World Domination     65
A Moment in Time     69
Naked with Strangers     74
Putting the Fun in Family Fun Night     81
Dressing Up     86
A Song in My Heart     90
Acting Up     94
Disco, Dates, and Doughnuts     100
Girls Make the Big Time     105
T-ball Mayhem     110
Mrs. Non Grata     113
Chillin' Out with the Fourth Child     118
King Kong and Me     123
Daddy and the &*{dollar}%#! Wood-Burning Stove     128
The World's Worst Virtual Mother     132
The Secret Rules of Motherhood     136
I've Got Your Feet!     140
Considering Day Care     144
Father's Day Heat Wave     148
Midsummer Night's Dream     152
Super Soaker Wars     155
A Car of One's Own     158
Classic Rewind Summer     162
Mom's Down for the Count     166
Why We Never Go Away     171
One Fabulous Night in Dayton     174
Bambi and the Coyotes     178
Craft Not     184
Seven-Minute Delay     187
So You Had a Bad Day     191
What If Social Services Stopped In?     194
It's a Long, Long Way to Retirement     200
"My Camel Has Floppy Humps"     204
Underwater Survival Tips for Moms     208
Time and Toddlers March On     212
Epilogue: On the Air, Away from Home     215