Don't Miss This Delicious Give Away!

Everyone has heard the old proverb, "It takes a whole village to raise a child". And if you are a parent, you know that this could not ring more true to a mother or a father. If you, like me, have no family in your town, you especially feel the strain of trying to keep everything together. Because, lets face it, if you have a stomach virus going on in your house, even the best friend wants no part of that. But a mama or a sister...she's on her way STAT...

I am blessed to have a friend 'from the womb' you might say. Our mamas were pregnant at the same time, and they were friends...so we grew up together. Our mamas got pregnant at the same time AGAIN...so our sisters are the same age. So we have spent years of our lives together. Of course there were times that we were closer than others, but we did elementary school plays together, sibling hide n seek games, break the egg on the trampoline, beach trips, the middle school awkwardness, the high school drama, high school encore productions, college(War Eagle), met each others new boyfriends that turned out to be the hubs', had babies together....the list goes on--but you get the point.  I am so glad that we are still close, and can call each other and pick up right where we left off.

That being said...she is part of my "village". Even though she lives hundreds of miles away--I call on her. When we were in the first year of having Sister, I have no idea how many calls or texts she got from me asking, what would seem to be for a seasoned mom, stupid questions. Her third daughter is the age of Sister, so she had been there...all over there...like everywhere. I recall one of those phone calls. Nick and I had gone out to eat dinner...Sister in tow. The meal was going great when all of a sudden, Sister coughed and started throwing up. Nick grabbed a diaper and shoved it at me. We tried to calmly but hurriedly contain the mess, grab our belongings, and run out the door before anyone noticed the madness. I called Robin on the way home. It went something like this:
Robin: Hello
Me: Um...Have any of your girls just thrown up at dinner for no reason?
Robin: Yes...did Sister do that?
Me: Yes, but she has no other symptoms. I mean, it just came out of nowhere...we caught it in a diaper, and, do you think she's sick? I don't know what could be wrong... we were just sitting there and..
Robin: She may have just gotten choked. It's fine. Really.

She probably got off of the phone laughing to herself at what a 'newbie' I was, but she was there.

We all need people in our village. But the village starts before the children actually come for some of us. When Nick and I decided to adopt, Robin was one of the first people that I told. I can still remember going to her mamas house and chatting with them both. And you know what? She was completely all in. When you are doing something 'out of the norm', like adopting, it is sometimes hard for people to be supportive because there are so many unknowns. But she was there. She's my people.

One of the things that I love about Robin is that she is funny. Hilarious, really. So she started blogging about her day to day life as a mama to three little girls. And it was funny. She soon realized that she had a following, and guess what? She compiled some of her funniest blog posts into a BOOK. And funny does not even began to describe it. I am not sure how many sideways glances I got from Nick as I was reading it, because I was laughing OUT LOUD. And guess what???? You can have a copy!

I am going to give a copy of Ketchup is a Vegetable, and Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves to one lucky person. You will thank me-I promise. Here is what you have to do: Go to Robin O'Bryant and like or share her page. Then leave a comment on my blog that you did that and voila! You will be in the drawing to win her book! This will be open until Monday at noon.

If you're not sure that you want to do that, let me share an excerpt from her book for you.....

I barely have time to wipe after I pee, much less have quiet 'Mommy Time'. My only escape is leaning over the kitchen sink that serves as my prayer closet and releasing my most sincere heartfelt prayer as I take a break from my daily dish duty. 'Jesus HELP me!' I scream, when I've reached my breaking point and can't take one more second of home life high jinks. Apparently this behavior is rubbing off on my children. The entire family was in the car one day and Emma could not leave her older sister alone. She pestered, aggravated and assaulted Aubrey until Aubrey had had her fill. 'JESUS HELP ME!' Aubrey screamed, sounding a whole lot like somebody I might know. My husband raised his eyebrows at me and said, 'How'd you like hearing your kid say that?' 'It's fine with me. I'm not taking His Name in vain when I say that, I'm BEGGING for divine intervention.' Because of his blatant disapproval of my language, I was ever so surprised when Aubrey shared with me a word she learned from her Daddy. Zeb had to work one Saturday, but because he is the most awesome husband alive (or possibly because he feared for his safety and the safety of his children), he stayed home until 8:30am so I could sleep late. (Yes, people without children: 8:30am is late.) I got up, fixed my coffee, checked my email and updated my Facebook status...you know, all of the really important things you do first thing in the morning. Aubrey came over and asked me if I would make her pancakes. I told her I would be glad to as soon as I finished up on the computer. She said, 'But Momma, there's only one effin' egg...' I still wasn't really awake. (I prefer not to speak or be spoken to until noonish but at the time, my three kids were all under the age of four, so I rarely got my way.) I wasn't sure I heard her correctly. 'WHAT did you say?' I asked her. 'THERE is only ONE EFFIN' EGG!' She was definitely screaming at me now. This could not be. Where would she have heard such language? 'Aubrey, what did you say?' She shook both of her fists in the air, and screamed at the top of her lungs, 'DADDY WAS GOING TO MAKE PANCAKES THIS MORNING, BUT THERE WAS ONLY ONE EFFIN' EGG!' Nice. I called Zeb and asked 'Was there only one effin' egg?' He paused. 'There was only one effin' egg.' Lovely.

And if you don't win this hard copy--Ketchup is a Vegetable and Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves is on sale thru September 9, for a whopping $0.99 at Amazon for your kindle here kindle version. It is also available from Barnes and Noble for Nook here nook version Happy Reading!!!