Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent-From Divorce and Dating to Cooking and Crafting, All While Raising the Kids and Maintaining Your Own Sanity (Sort Of)
320Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent-From Divorce and Dating to Cooking and Crafting, All While Raising the Kids and Maintaining Your Own Sanity (Sort Of)
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Overview
“One of the best new parenting ebooks.” —BookAuthority
A Single Mom Shares Her Inspiring and Hilarious Tales of Parenting, Full of Love, Advice, and Humor
Being a single mother means relaxing your cleanliness standards. A lot. Being a single mother means missing your kids like crazy when your ex has them, only to want to give them back ten minutes after they come home. Being a single mother means accepting sleep deprivation as a natural state. Being a single mother means hauling a toddler, a baby, and a diaper bag while wearing high heels and a cute skirt, because you never know when you’ll meet someone. Being a single mother means finding out you are stronger than you ever knew was possible.
Since birth, Lara Lillibridge’s children wanted, “Mama, Mama, only Mama!” whether they were tired or just woke up from a nap—whether they were starving or had just finished a bowl of goldfish crackers. Over ten years later, not much has changed. Between hilarious episodes and candid stories, Lillibridge offers the bits of advice and enlightenment she’s gained along the way and never fails to commiserate on the many challenges that come with raising children in a non-nuclear family. This creative, touching memoir will resonate with single moms everywhere, whether solo parenting is new territory or well-trodden ground for them.
Written in the style of a diary with blogs, articles and recipes tucked between the pages, Mama, Mama, Only Mama follows Lillibridge and her two children, Big Pants and Tiny Pants, out of divorce, through six years of single parenting, and into the family blender with a quasi-stepfather called SigO. Complete with highly useful recipes such as congealed s’more stew, recycled snack candy bars, instant oatmeal cookies and a fine chicken casserole that didn’t pass Tiny Pants’s “lick test,” Lillibridge grows into her role as mother, finds true love, and comes to terms with her ex-husband.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781510743564 |
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Publisher: | Skyhorse |
Publication date: | 05/07/2019 |
Pages: | 320 |
Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Part 1 The Dissolution of Our Marriage 1
Step Stools 2
Swedish Meatballs 4
The Beginning Always Stares with an Ending 7
Whitefish Girl 9
Drag Fish 13
Warning Signs Are for Wimps 16
The End of It All 19
Part 2 Becoming Only Mama 27
Preparing the Reader for the Ensuing Chaos: How to Make a Light Whiskey Sour 28
It's a Nice Life, but Someone's Got to Pay for It 32
Only Mama Post: Divorce Is Just Weird Sometimes-An Ode to a Dancing Gopher 36
Negotiating with Spiders 39
Introducing the Stars of Our Show: Big Pants and Tiny Pants 43
In Which Big Pants and I Accidentally Misplace the Baby 47
Dating as a Single Parent 49
Mexican Lasagna 55
Only Mama Post: I Clean the Fridge and Ruminate About Marriage 58
Halloween and an Ill-Fated Facebook Romance 61
Only Mama Post: Pawning Off My Work on My Four-Year-Old 65
I Encounter a Weird Married Mom 67
Artichoke Dip 70
Nannies versus Husbands 72
Actual Letter to Nanny on Her First Day on the Job 76
Grocery Shopping 79
My Ultimate Egg White Breakfast 83
Only Mama Post: The Big Fat Truth About Cleaning and Being Single 85
Housekeeping 88
Cleaning Tips for Slackers 91
My First Single-Mama Mother's Day 93
Moms Gone Wild 95
Free Tips for Moms Considering Going Wild 99
Homemade Gourmet-ish Tortilla Chips 102
Only Mama Post: I Swear, Children, I Never Flashed My Boobs at Fantasy Fest 103
On Naps 105
The Mama Bus Always Leaves on Time 108
Single Parenting Turns You into a Teenager 111
Actually Healthy-ish Microwave Popcorn AKA Desperation Popcorn 114
Kitchen Lies 116
Only Mama Post: My Christmas Peppermint Tray 118
Consignment Store Christmas 120
Only Mama Post: Tag-Team Christmas 122
Standing in the Return Line 124
How to Make Fried Dough 127
Male Friends, with and without Benefits 130
UnobtainiMan 133
School 136
Only Mama Post: In Which I Am Forced to Commune with Nature in a Foot of Snow and Write a Bad Poem About It 138
In Which I Go Out to Eat Alone and Live to Tell About It 141
The World's Simplest Beer Bread 144
Beer Bread Breakfast Muffins 146
First Day of School 147
Only Mama Post: The Tooth Fairy Fell Asleep 149
The Big Wheel 152
Experimental Mama Cooking: Congealed S'more Stew 155
The Mama Contract 157
Only Mama Post: Homework Avoidance 159
The Good Men Project: What a Boy's Love of Baseball Taught His Sports-Averse Mother 161
Barely Recognizable Animals 165
Only Mama Post: How We Obtained a Cat 168
Budgets and Birthdays and a Complicated Cake 171
Simplified Cassata Cake (Cleveland Version) 173
Mother F-ing Snakes on a Mother F-ing Plane, or How I Wound Up on the Huffington Post 176
HuffPost: What If We Treated Marriage More Like the Contract It Is? 179
Part 3 Into the Family Blender 183
The House Is Right, the Time Is Now 184
A Move and a Strike 187
Easy Like … Oh, Hell, Easy Is for Elevator Music 189
Only Mama Post: The Best Advice I Have Ever Been Given 193
Instant Oatmeal Cookies 195
Sleepover with Daddy Pants 197
Only Mama Post: In Which We Take Dog to the Vet 201
Watching Your Child Mourn 203
The Great Latke Incident of 2014 206
How to Make Latkes 209
Magical Thinking 211
Only Mama Post: The Talk and "The Book" 213
How to Fly with Small Children 217
Recycled Snack Candy Bars 222
Tiny Pants and the Babies 224
Only Mama Post: Oh Santa, I'm Sorry 229
HuffPost: Sometimes You Are Not a Victim-You Are an Asshole 231
The Great Chicken Casserole Standoff 234
Chicken Casserole 236
Only Mama Post: The Tooth Fairy Got Played 237
The More Things Change, the More I Lock the Family Out of the House 239
HuffPost: Elephant Skin, Grinning Corpse Face, and Fighting Gravity 244
Homemade Spa-Type Skin Exfoliant 247
Mama (Accidentally) Makes a Dildo 248
HuffPost: A Divorced Mom Talks to Her Children About Marriage 251
Optional Items-Chocolate Cookies 255
Only Mama Post: Clean Vehicle-Is That Even Possible? 259
Diamonds 262
Italian Wedding Soup 266
HuffPost: Saying Farewell to the Tooth Fairy 267
How I Became a Hockey Mom Against My Better Judgment 270
Only Mama Post: Freudian Lawn Job 275
For the Love of All That Is Holy, Can We Please Agree That All Women's Clothing Needs Pockets? 277
Fiery Taco Seasoning Mix 280
The Family Blender 281
HuffPost: Fourth of July as a Single Parent 284
Grade A 287
Circling Hope 289
Tell-All: I Make a Turkey for No Good Reason (Includes a Bonus Cranberry Sauce Recipe) 291
Wait, Don't Ride Off So Quickly! 296
Modern Parents, Messy Kids: Should You Send Your Ex a Fathers Day Card? 299
Saying Farewell to Only Mama 302
Acknowledgments 303
Author's Note 304