Say It Again In A Nice Voice

Say It Again In A Nice Voice

′Mothers. Those women with purses the size of meat trays that hold an entire deck of school portrait photos and a chequebook, make a casserole without a recipe, make the tightest bed you′ll ever sleep in and only swear under extreme duress. How, how, would I go from me to that?′

At 24, Meg Mason was newly married to a man -essentially indistinguishable from a young Matt Damon' after landing her dream job, writing for The Times in London. What could possibly go wrong? A holiday in Greece, an accidental shortage of birth control, and eight months later she was sobbing on the side of a road over trading her career for something she knew zip about.

On October 8, 2003, she invented motherhood by Having A Baby. On October 9th, she discovered a bunch of women had done that already. But still they couldn't tell her how to do it.

Thanks to a helpful neighbour she knew that convincing a newborn to take a bottle by letting it lick a Dorito first to ′get more thirsty′ didn′t always work, but not what to do when your child won′t sleep for roughly two years in London or in Sydney, or how to remove your hand from a stroller - after you′ve superglued it to the handle.

Hair-raising, terrifying and hilariously funny, along the way she discovers that being a mother, however disaster-prone, just might be the only thing that she is truly irreplaceable at.

-I wrote the book I wished I'd had to make me feel better when I was a slightly lost stay-at-home mother with no friends, no job and a serious Panadol habit' says Mason. -There's nothing so reassuring as somebody doing it all worse than you.'

Meg Mason was born in a tiny New Zealand town called Foxton. It was too small to have a hospital, but it did have its own -maternity home' where, her mother told her, you were allowed to smoke in bed right after giving birth. Nothing says quality postnatal care like a new mother chaining it beside her sleeping baby.

At 8, she moved to Palmerston North, where Janet Frame lived at the time. Meg didn't know she was Janet Frame, the famous writer, she just knew her as the funny ginger lady from few streets over.

Meg began her writing career at the Financal Times in London before switching to The Times to write on lifestyle, parenting and humour. After relocating to Sydney, she began writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, Russh, the British Medical Journey, Cosmopolitan and GQ. She now writes regular features and the popular 'Mum vs. World 'column for Sunday, and in Sydney with her husband and two daughters.

Say It Again In A Nice Voice
Harper Collins Australia
Author: Meg Mason
ISBN: 9780732293529
Price: $29.99