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Expect the Unexpected When You're Expecting

Sometimes, the best remedy for the tired, cranky mother-to-be (or new mother) is a good laugh. Most of them have already read the sensible (if somewhat bossy) advice contained in What to Expect When You’re Expecting, (today’s undisputed pregnancy “bible”). And there is no better antidote to all that solid, realistic advice than this outlandish, sharp-witted parody.

This opinionated handbook answers the questions that no one else has dared: “Are You Pregnant, or Have You Been Mountain Climbing?” It also gives recipes for the pregnant appetite, such as Captain Jack’s Barnacle Gumbo and Triple Chocolate Freak-Out; solves the expectant mother’s fashion crises including the Protruding Bellybutton Dilemma and Outgrown Maternity Clothes); helps you select the least wimpy name for your baby, and much more than you’ll ever need (or want) to know! Profusely illustrated.

Harper Collins | Paperback | 124 pages | $13.00

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An excerpt from... Expect the Unexpected When You're Expecting!

In my days as a brain-impaired mother of two toddlers, I suddenly had the notion to write a parody of the all-time pregnancy "bible," What to Expect When You're Expecting, the book that expectant mothers love to hate. Those bossy answers! That impossible diet! Those scare tactics! It was a perfect book to parody, and I had a great time writing and illustrating it.

OLD WIVES TALES
My Slavic grandmother says that if I wear a bag of garlic around my ankle during pregnancy, it will protect my baby from "the evil eye." Is this true?

In these high-tech times, it's easy to dismiss old wives tales as twaddle. But if there's nothing to them, why have they persisted for centuries? Take "the evil eye" every culture on the face of the earth fears it, though no one has ever really seen it, let alone knows what it is. Somehow, it quietly persists in letting us know that it may be in our neighborhood.

We're talking about protecting a baby here, so why take chances? Be a good girl and listen to your grandmother. Wear a bag of garlic around both ankles. You can always hide them with an attractive pair of boots.

Fifty years from now, the internet, e-mail, and all that kind of stuff will probably be obsolete, but the same "old wives tales" will still be around. We believe that hidden wisdom lurks in all 13,300 of the known superstitions relating to pregnancy and birth. Here are just a few of our favorites:

If you carry high and pointy, it will be a boy. If you carry low and wide, it will be a girl. -Lithuania

If you carry low and wide, it will be a boy. If you carry high and pointy, it will be a girl. -Bulgaria

If a rooster crows at the moment of conception, your baby will grow up to be an attorney. -U.S. (Nebraska)

Don't kick or curse at a pig while pregnant, or your baby will be born with a foul temperament. -Isle of Wight

If you dream of an Elvis impersonator while pregnant, your water will break a week before your due date. -U.S. (Tennessee)

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Expect the Unexpected When You're Expecting