Title: I Didn't Know You Could Make Birthday Cake from Scratch: Parenting Blunders from Cradle to Empty Nest
Author: Dorothy Rosby
Genre: Humorous Essays
Book Blurb:
The book for every parent who ever stuck a candle in a peanut butter sandwich and called it birthday cake. Or ever tried to crowd fund her child’s braces. Or ever told her child to BE QUIET so she could finish reading an article on good parenting.
Excerpts:
Dead People at the Daycare (excerpt from chapter 1 on childcare):
Even when you’re blessed with quality daycare and wonderful babysitters, as we were, childcare can be traumatic—for parents. Kids do fine with it.
To manage, parents must have a great deal of trust in their childcare providers—which we did. They must also have honest, open communication with the provider because whenever two or more children are gathered together, issues will arise—strange rashes, bite marks and new vocabulary words.
Worse are the mysterious stories told by children who aren’t yet able to communicate. One day when my son was around four years old, he refused to go to the daycare. This was unusual for him, but not nearly as unusual as his reason. He said he didn’t want to go because of the dead people in the bathroom. Being fairly certain there were no dead people in the bathroom at the daycare, or in any other room for that matter, I asked him if maybe the dead people were dolls. He was adamant that they were not dolls. He said there were three or four of them, they were about his size, and the teachers took their heads off and put them in the bathroom. Wow. I wouldn’t want to go to that daycare either.
I promised Isaac I would investigate and if there really were dead people in the bathroom, naturally he would not have to stay at that daycare nor, I imagine, would any of the other children.
Thanks to the excellent relationship and outstanding communication we had with our day care provider, I felt comfortable being upfront about the situation. When we arrived at the daycare, I told the first teacher we met as delicately as I could that my son was afraid of the dead people they kept in the bathroom. She laughed a little nervously, then she suggested gently that my son had an overactive imagination. Admittedly he did, and still does, have an active imagination, but at four he had not yet dreamt up homicide.
The second teacher understood immediately. She went into the bathroom and came out carrying a body. I’m joking. Actually she was carrying a small dummy used for CPR training—complete with head…
How Long Will It Take Dorothy to Complete 22 Math Problems? (Excerpt from Chapter III on education):
If you tell yourself you’re bad at something, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s why when my son asks for help with his math homework, I never say, “I’m no good at math.” I say, “Go ask your father.”
My husband is a former elementary school teacher whom I once caught thumbing through an old calculus book for fun. I never took calculus and I remember nothing of algebra or geometry. I take that back. I do know a rectangle when I see one. But I’m a journalism major with an English minor who didn’t realize until recently that telling myself I’m no good at math would make it so. (Oh, and if you catch any grammar errors in this essay, remember it’s an English minor, not an English major.)
Thankfully it takes all kinds; it just takes some kinds longer to do math. And at my house, that’s the kind that’s usually around at homework time. As a liberal arts person, I have to say my least favorite of all math problems are story problems. Story problems take something I’m very fond of—stories—and turn them into something I’m not fond of at all: math problems.
I realize story problems are real life problems and that we encounter them on a daily basis. Take this example: Dorothy is baking a chocolate cake. The recipe calls for … oh wait. Bad example. I never bake cake, though I do eat cake, sometimes multiple pieces.
But let’s try another example: Mrs. Rosby’s son Isaac needs $250 for the camp he’s attending this summer. He also needs a new pair of shoes, which will cost anywhere from $50 to $150 depending on what kind of mood Mrs. Rosby is in the day they go shopping. Mrs. Rosby has $17. How much money will Mrs. Rosby need to win on scratch lottery tickets in order to pay her son’s expenses? And how many years until he can get a job so he can pay them himself? (Oh, and don’t call me Mrs. Rosby. It makes me sound old. How many years older does it make me sound?)
When I help my son with story problems, the liberal arts major in me can’t help but come out, as you’ll see from the following story problems taken from actual math worksheets.
Problem 1: Each week Sarah washes dishes three nights, washes clothes one night, empties trash cans two nights, and cooks supper one night. If you stop by randomly one evening, what are the chances that Sarah would be cooking dinner? A math person would say “one in seven.” (I think.) I say, “What are the chances that Sarah could come to my house a few nights a week?” (I like stories with happy endings.)
Problem 2: David can walk 12 blocks in five minutes. If each block is 50 feet long, how many feet will David walk during the 30 minutes he walks his dog? A math person would say 3600 feet—or something like that. I say, “That depends. Does the dog have to pee?”
Problem 3: Dorothy has 22 math problems to do. She completes one problem every three minutes. In hours and minutes, how long will it take Dorothy to complete all 22 problems? A math person would say, “One hour and six minutes.” I say, “One problem every three minutes? Are you joking? That’s no self-fulfilling prophecy; that’s a miracle.”
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What makes your featured book a must-read?
We moms often feel overwhelmed and inadequate, especially when we compare ourselves to other mothers. It’s comforting to know that all moms fail sometimes—this author, for example.
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Runs May 7 – May 14, 2024.
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Author Biography:
Dorothy Rosby is an author and humor columnist whose work appears regularly in publications in the West and Midwest. She’s also the author of three other humor collections: I Used to Think I Was Not That Bad and Then I Got to Know Me Better; ‘Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate: Holidays, Special Occasions and Other Times Our Celebrations Get Out of Hand; and Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About and she lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota, 20 miles from Mount Rushmore, something she’s very proud of though she’s not on it…yet.
Social Media Links:
Twitter: @dorothyrosby