Wow, that is priceless!
Books aren't any better today. Have you seen that book, "My Beautiful Mommy" (I recently wrote a post about it) which helps your child deal with how mommy might change once she has plastic surgery. Talk about screwed up messages sent to your child.
http://andria-and-co.com
HA HA. I love her face when she returns.
she's all: "arghhh. why didn't I stay an extra night and get that facial and another massage from Thor?"
Beats what my dad used to say, which was "Why don't you kids go play in the street so I can watch the news?"
No, don't think he was kidding...
My dad's response to "I'm bored" was ALWAYS " Go run around the block a few times" seriously EVERY TIME!
Where do you find these books??
Welcome to the Spouses of Road Warriors Support Group. I've been a member for about 7 years. The year our 2nd child was born, we lived in LA and he worked Monday-Friday in Boston. Good times. 
Is this book real? Really?
Oh my bwah. What the hell is that fingernail picture?!
now see, i took the page where daddy said "i have an idea, let's get all dressed up for mommy, she likes that!" in a TOTALLY different way...
Jesus that's depressing. I once found a 60's era book at an estate sale called "Mommy, It Hurts" and it was a book of all (and I mean ALL) the ailments that could befall a child. There was a close-up of a crying toddler on the front. It looked straight out of Wonder Showzen.
I didn't know Neil Diamond had been a stay at home dad!
I bet poor Ben STILL talks about this in therapy.
Really, where DO you find these books? I wonder if I could find some at the library. Thanks for the very entertaining (and educational)post!
hahahahaha oh wow...
i just.. i don't know what to say.
i can't stop laughing!
you should share a picture of what juniper thinks YOU look like!
this is a real book.
I find these books at thrift stores. I doubt you could find many of them at libraries: most of the ones I get seem to have been donated by libraries.
once, when i was six, my mom had to stay for a week at the hospital with my younger sister who had some major eye infection.
i distinctly remember the first night leaving the hospital with my dad to go home and my mom giving my dad instructions on how to hot roll my hair for the next morning. convinced that he would fuck up the entire operation i immediately began to worry. i was so worried the next morning about having stupid hair that i threw up and didn't have to go to school.
i should have written a book.
This cracked me up. But Amanda's story did as well.
It's a wonder we (or our parents) made it out alive.
Good luck with the transitions.
Gretchen, I saw Neil Diamond too!
holy scheißen. this isn't a book for kids to learn how to deal when mom goes away, this is an instruction manual for jerks so that they know that as long as they dress the kid up five minutes before mom gets home, she'll never be the wiser.
My grandma had a book about danger that showed stick people dying in fabulous and terrifying ways. We LOVED that book. Especially the stick man who was set on fire.
Ben appears to be grunting "RED RUM" in the hangnail photo.
kelly: indeed.
if only kubrick had purchased the film rights for "daddy and ben's weekend together."
maybe ben just doesn't grasp how amazing happy hour truly is...
terrifying book, really.
Very stinkin' funny!
Neil Diamond's ugly brother?
Oh my god, I am that dad (in mum form). I thought it was normal -- I thought all that ideal parent stuff was just some kind of marketing!
Please someone else tell me they related to all of those pics...
the last line - it was the last line that was my favorite.
Hmh…between being left with the kids and all the veggies you buy, I’d LOVE to hear a typical week’s menu at the sweetjuniper house looks like... your pictures inspire me to go shopping but my weekly treks to the farmer’s market leave me with lots of rotting food 
freakin' hilarious.
How sad is it that for as antiquated and pathetic as that dad, and the whole situation, seems, I saw a lot of myself in his reading the whole paper while telling the kid to go entertain himself.
Except replace "the whole paper" with "the whole Internet".
Frowny face.
Thanks for that. What a joy to read about your happy hour
Bravo, Daddy.
LiteralDan, don't take it to heart. Parents need to take a few minutes of time for themselves every now and then, particularly those with very demanding children.
Sometimes, I feel guilty when I sneak away for a few minutes of 'me' time in the garage or yard, but then I have to remind myself that I am 10x more involved with my kids than my dad ever was.
Did anyone notice that it seems to be a completely different dad in the Saturday morning picture? Maybe that's why Ben's Mom was taking a new job. She had an extra husband to support.
for as much as we see ourselves in some of daddy's behavior, how many of us would make it the subject of a children's book? I think the idea of the "ideal parent" is very present in this book---she just happens to be out of town for her new job.
I am crying I'm laughing so hard. That nail-clipping image looks like something out of a photographic handbook for US prisoner torture or something.
Neil Diamond? I was thinking Neil Young.
Which would be either more fun or more terrifying, I don't actually know which.
someone told me they were on a plane with neil young once, and he was with his son who has CP and I guess he was really sweet with him.
my favorite neil young album is Trans, which some say was a crazy effort to use the vocoder to "speak" to him.
no, i don't believe it, that wasn't a real book for kids.
I don't know if you've talked about it or seen it because I am still backtracking, but you've got to rent "Free To Be You & Me" with Marlo Thomas & Harry Belafonte. It's from like 1977. All about how kids don't have to fit the gender stereotypes. I got it from our library. If it's here in Shrubland, it's got to be available at the DPL.
Very fun to watch & sing.
Um, love to hear your thoughts on that Palin after your passive-aggressive comment, there. Deep breaths.
I love a man who can use "Doppelgänger" in a blog post, umlaut and everything.
I'm with Avalon - it does look like 2 different dads. Which spices up the whole story. Maybe one is Neil Diamond and the other Neil Young. Is the Mom the "Goodbye Girl" or Marlo Thomas?
That page where the kid is waiting for Dad after school looks just like one of your Friday urchin pics. If they were standing on a giant puzzle.
My husband has always liked it when I dressed up for him when he comes in from the airport. I think his favorites are the police officer or the equestrian princess. Guess that helps to explain how we had 6 kids. However, I don't include the kids in the dress up part.
LiteralDan's comment "Except replace "the whole paper" with "the whole Internet" made me spit water on my laptop. So true, sir, so true.
I love the last line.
Yeah, geez, Ben! I'll bet your someone's pain in the ass now.
They were kind of cute, though. God, this makes me realize I might be a dad and husband might be a mom. I think he's just fine when I leave but not vice versa.
your blog makes me so happy. thank you for sharing it with the world.
I'm not sure whether to laugh, cause this is damn funny, or puke because that's my husband with the bloody paper. And please, like mom is that much of a sucker!
Nice work also Amanda...nearly peed myself over the hot roller fiasco.
Your last comment made on the book made me laugh a long long time. Thank you.
Scary, yes. Available now is a book that itemizes all the things Mommy could be (an astronaut, a lawyer, a teacher etc.) but INSTEAD she's MY MOM.
...oh, yes, I seem to have expelled my ambition and personal desires along with the placenta...silly me. Should have seen that coming.
See, now I never realized Neil Diamond and Shelley Hack had a baby together.
I can understand throwing the crayons at the kids when you wanted to read the paper, back then. I mean, they didn't have massive plasma televisions or Game Boys. What else could a 70's Dad do?
Holy shit, that's funny.
That can't be a real book.
I cant stop laughing. Please say they are making a TV show out of this.
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