Crash Test Parents Series

From the humorist behind the popular Crash Test Parents blog comes this collection of cleanly hilarious, irreverently honest, and undeniably charming essays that humanize the challenges, frustrations and rare victories of every parent—unless you're a perfect one, in which case this book is not for you. Rachel shapes stories around the everyday happenings of parents—trying to leave the house with kids, eating at the same table as kids, wrestling plungers (and other undesirable "toys") from the hands of kids. She opens a window into the trenches of parenthood, where she says you'll feel like Cinderella without the fancy ballgown, dream of sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, and aspire to master that Pinterest perfect party—which won't happen, by the way, because kids live to thwart their parents at every turn. Also, you'll be so glad you're here.   The essays collected in Parenthood: Has Anyone Seen My Sanity? are not only deeply introspective and encouraging but also wildly hilarious and entertaining. Rachel pulls her readers along for the ride of a lifetime (parenthood excepted, of course) and shows parents how they, too, can laugh at themselves, their situations and the antics of their children—laugh their way right into hope.   Parenthood: Has Anyone Seen My Sanity? includes essays like: Things You Don't Consider Before Becoming a Parent Sleep While the Baby Sleeps and Other Unhelpful Advice No, I'm Not Still Pregnant. This is Just My After-Belly. Do I Ever Feel Like Giving Up? Every Other Minute. That Frightening Time When Your Kid is Learning Autonomy What Happens When a Kid Environmentalist is on Trash Duty How to Talk Like a 3-Year-Old Why Traveling With Kids is Maybe the Worst Idea Ever Ain't Nobody Got Time for a Pinterest Perfect Party Parenting is Like Living In an Insane Asylum and many more.   Called the Erma Bombeck of a new generation of parents, Rachel's first full-length humor book in the Crash Test Parents series is sure to set parents laughing in recognition and relief that they are not the slightest bit alone.   Rachel is the mother of six young boys who daily give her inspiration for comical essays. Her essays can often be seen on Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy and Babble. She lives with all her males in San Antonio, Texas, where she faithfully writes 5,000 words a day, five days a week.

Would you rather try to keep a tidy house with kids around or clean up after a tornado every day? It's about the same. When you're a parent, you spend a considerable amount of time working as an unpaid maid. You pick up something your kid left on the floor just so he can throw it down again. Upon entering parenthood, your aspirations for a clean and tidy house soar out the window, flying on wings of impossibility.    And maybe that's as it should be.   From the voice behind the popular Crash Test Parents blog comes Book 2 of the series by the same name. With wit and eloquence, Rachel tells the true story of what it's like to dream of a tidy house and live in the reality of parenthood, where kids thwart your tidying efforts at every turn.    The Life-Changing Madness of Tidying Up After Children includes hilarious and entertaining essays like:    What Do Scissors Have to Do With an Untidy Home? Pretty Much Everything. Astounding Stockpiles in Which to Lose Yourself On Storage Solutions: Pursue Ultimate Lockdown The Most Common Battlegrounds for Entropy Tidying Language is Lost in Translation The Confidence You Gain in Your Tidying Attempts: You Will Fail at Lesser Things LEGOs: The Safest Explosion You'll Ever Survive (And Also the Most Annoying) The Whole World's a Canvas (Especially When It Has Walls) Where Are All My Household Utensils? and many more.   Called "the Erma Bombeck of a new generation of parents," Rachel's second full-length book of essays in the Crash Test Parents series is sure to make you laugh out loud and then promptly hug your children—because they really are messy little treasures.   Rachel is the mother of six young boys who daily give her inspiration for comical essays. Her essays can often be seen on Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy and Babble. She lives with all her males in San Antonio, Texas, where she faithfully writes 5,000 words a day, five days a week.

Idiodare:  1. (Verb) To defy or challenge someone to do something idiotic.  2. (Noun) An idiotic challenge. 3. (Fact) Something with which you'll become intimately familiar in a house full of boys.   There's nothing like a crew of boys to show you how funny bodily functions are, how loud a house can get, and how little one should care about clothes, nice shoes, style, and personal care. Boys see the world as a gigantic playground. They see home as a safe place to be their truest, messiest selves. They see dads as an eternal jungle gym and moms as a source of unconditional, never-ending love.   There's just nothing like them.   From the voice behind the popular Crash Test Parents blog comes Book 3 of the Crash Test Parents series. With wit and eloquence, Rachel shines a light on what it's like to live with males who unintentionally destroy everything, unwittingly walk around in a dirt cloud, and wholeheartedly enjoy making everything a competition—especially if it involves eating.   This Life With Boys includes hilarious and entertaining essays like:    What Sons Do to a Perfectly Good House Food is the Way to a Boy's Heart What it Means to Be a Boy: Compete in Everything Welcome to My Smelly Pit How Boys Fight: Incessantly I See London, I See France, Go Put on Some Underpants How to Dress Like a Boy Things You'll Hear in a Household of Boys How to Turn Family Dinners into Family Gag Fests 11 Mom Looks that are Familiar to Boys 8 Ridiculous Things I No Longer Care About As a Mom   and many more.   Hailed as "the Erma Bombeck of a new generation of parents," Rachel's third full-length book of humor essays in the Crash Test Parents series will make you laugh until you cry and cry until you laugh—but mostly it will remind you that this life with boys? It's pretty grand.   Rachel is the mother of six young boys who daily give her inspiration for comical essays. Her work can often be seen on Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy, Babble and Motherly. She lives with all her males in San Antonio, Texas, where she faithfully writes 5,000 words a day, five days a week.

Choose your battles. It's sage advice. But most parents, before becoming parents, don't have a clue just how many battles kids will place in front of them with seemingly endless energy to engage. Choose your battles becomes a life-saving measure when one has kids. Knowing when to stand your ground and when to lie down is imperative in the face of such admirable yet aggravating persistence. From the voice behind the popular Crash Test Parents blog comes a brand new collection of comical essays about the challenges and joys of parenting. With measured wit and eloquence, Rachel exposes the universal challenges of leaving the house with kids, traveling with kids, putting kids to bed, eating with kids, and, largely, daily life lived with kids. Hills I'll Probably Lie Down On includes hilarious and entertaining essays like:  10 Things You'll Give Up When You Become a Parent Surprise! We're Doing the Same Thing We Did Last Night! Why I'm a Parent Who Doesn't Care Hoarders: Kids Edition This is Every Family Dinner You've Ever Had Why Does My Towel Smell Like Butt? How to Parent: In 39 Confusing Steps Dear Concerned Reader: Wouldn't You Like to Know and many more. Hailed as "The Erma Bombeck of a new generation of parents," Rachel's fourth full-length book of humor essays in the Crash Test Parents series will cure every parent's reluctance to say: These are the hills we won't die on.  Rachel is the wife of one man and the mother of six young boys who daily give her inspiration for comical essays. Her work can often be seen on Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy, Babble, and Motherly. She lives with all her males in San Antonio, Texas.

Don't worry about us; we're doing just fine. In the parenting world, we readily adjust our masks, pretend we're having a grand old time, do anything we can to avoid admitting that sometimes we don't know what we're doing, sometimes we question our sanity, sometimes we think our kids might be breaking us. Judgment is rife and large in the parenting world, and we dare not say anything vulnerable, lest we be cast into The Bad Parent Camp. Staring down that very judgment, Rachel opens up the doors of her home and lets the madness spill into the streets. With her characteristic wit and hilarity, Rachel shares her family's most frequent battles (technology time and leaving the house), their failures, their pressure points, their abundant annoyances, and her loudest insecurities as a mother. But even with its ample humor, If These Walls Could Talk is a powerful commentary on modern parenting with a hopeful message: we're all doing the best we can—and that's enough. If These Walls Could Talk includes humorous essays like: So Much for a Yell-Free Year A Realistic Look at Having a Large Family Welcome to Minecraft Motherhood No Sane Parent Ever Did it All What Silence Means in the Life of a Parent The Madness of Traveling with Children The Mysterious Lure of Screens: a Love/Hate Story 8 Steps that Comprise a Strong-Willed Child's Meltdown and many more. Hailed as "The Erma Bombeck of a new parenting generation," Rachel's fifth full-length book of humor essays will simultaneously amuse and soothe modern parents with the bolstering knowledge that they are not alone. Rachel is the wife of one man and the mother of six young sons who daily give her inspiration for comical essays. Her work can often be found on Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy, Babble, and Motherly. She lives with all her males in San Antonio, Texas.

Blink and they'll be grown.   As new parents, the words of older, wiser parents don't make a bit of sense. Blink and they'll be grown? We blinked and three toilet paper rolls disappeared down the flusher, and now there's sewage water flooding the bathroom. We blinked and three pounds of apples mysteriously disappeared, and no one's responsible. We blinked and someone drew hieroglyphics all over the living room wall with a permanent marker. We blinked and…oh. They're grown.   Examining the phenomenon of one day that can last sixty-seven hours and one year passing in the blink of an eye, Rachel once again opens up the doors to her home and her family and shares what it means to parent growing and changing children. With the wit and hilarity readers have come to expect, she examines the laughable challenges facing parents at practically every turn of a kid's life; highlights rites of passage like The Funk and a parent's fall from "The Cool Club"; and details the many different personalities kids assume in their day-to-day, year-to-year lives—from listening personalities to sleeping personalities. But every essay collected within these pages keeps its eye on a sometimes subtle, sometimes overt truth: one day, sooner than we can even imagine, they'll grow up.   The Days Are Long, But the Years Are Short includes humorous essays like:   The Speaking Personalities of Children How to Misuse LEGOs: a Generous Guide How to Leave the House With Kids: a 5-Step, Foolproof Plan The Subjectively Fun Games Boys Play The Never-Ending Nuances of Rule-Making for Kids Sometimes I Want to Change My Name Co-Parenting: a Tale of Inconsistency and Chaos The Day I Stopped Eating Food Where Kids Could See It   and many more.   Hailed as "The Erma Bombeck of a new parenting generation," Rachel's sixth full-length book of humor essays is, at its heart, a celebration of the madness that is parenting—every moment that drags on and on and on, every year that flies away faster than a kid who knows he's in trouble.   Rachel is the wife of one man and the mother of six sons who daily give her inspiration for comical essays. Her work can often be found on Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy, Babble, Motherly, and Today's Parent. She lives with all her males in San Antonio, Texas.