'Parcel Out Your Despair' and 'Do Not Throw Up Near Your Dog'

March 8, 2011 -- Moms, file this under pregnancy advice you probably never received: "Parcel out your despair, month by month, in subtle winces and sobs."

Or this: "Do not throw up near your dog. He will delight in the warm snack you have provided him via your mouth. And then you will throw up all over again, and for the rest of your life."

Both nuggets of wisdom -- and many, many more -- come courtesy of Alice Bradley and Eden M. Kennedy in their new book "Let's Panic About Babies!" (Subtitle: "How to Endure and Possibly Triumph Over the Adorable Tyrant Who Will Ruin Your Body, Destroy Your Life, Liquefy Your Brain and Finally Turn You Into a Worthwhile Human Being.")

Suffice it to say, "Panic" is a bit of satire -- a humorous lampooning of a world not known for an ability to laugh at itself: the pregnancy and pediatrics punditocracy.

"For new moms and anybody who has been through the whole thing, it helps you laugh at it and it gives you perspective," Bradley, 41, said. "There are plenty of people in the country who think that motherhood is sacred and you don't laugh at this stuff. We use the F-word. And the S-word. There are some words."

When Bradley was pregnant with son Henry, she was a nervous wreck. The stress of merely being pregnant triggered migraines and caused her to break out in hives. A self-described neurotic anyway, Bradley would fervently consult every last bit of literature she could find on healthy pregnancies.

"It was such a mysterious process and I got so nervous because there was this thing growing in me," she said. "I got very literal. I would look at a book and it would say, 'Here's what you should be feeling at the fourth month,' and it wouldn't say 'nausea' even though I was still queasy."

Before long, Bradley, a New Yorker, started a blog called finslippy, and connected online with Kennedy, who blogs across the country in California as Fussy and has a similar sensibility.

Skewering Sanctimony

"We were just tired of the sanctimoniousness of parenting advice," Kennedy recalled. "Somebody who wasn't a parent but wanted to help me sent me a copy of this book that had very specific instructions about how to put a baby to sleep. I was trying so hard to do exactly what the book said and I was a miserable failure. I thought it was me and it undermined my confidence for a while."

Enter "Panic." Chock-a-block with illustrations, lists and charts, the book is fast and funny. But in its skewering of more earnest baby books, it maintains a fundamental humanity. With chapter titles that include "This Pregnancy Sh-- Is Getting Old!" and "Back to Work, or Do You Love Your Baby?" the book defends mothers from the sense of inadequacy so much of the literature can induce.

"The target is not the parents," Bradley said. "We do not want to make fun of mothers."

The message seems to be resonating. Published on March 1, the book was ranked 149 on Amazon before the week had ended. Now the two hope to spin off the success of the book into future franchises.

"We want to do, 'Let's Panic About Children' and 'Let's Panic About Teenagers,'" Bradley said. "There's no limit to things out there to freak out about."