This is a little book of happiness. You’ll need someone in the room to read the really funny ones to. – PAIGE NICK
This is a joke book – a collection of real conversations I’ve had with my offspring, or that they’ve had with me, mostly against my will. I started keeping records for my own entertainment when they began to talk properly:
Two-year-old: What’s that? Me: My nipple. Two-year-old: Is it dead?
I regretted teaching them to speak once pre-adolescence and Covid lockdowns arrived – life phases with equivalent survival strategies and effects:
Nine-year-old: Good news! While you were in your meeting, I finished your puzzle! Me: … Nine-year-old: I could see it was too hard for you.
It’s still noisy here.
Thirteen-year-old: I don’t like boys. Me: Okay. Thirteen-year-old: I like cats. Me: Okay! Thirteen-year-old: So … not your daughter, then.
I hope it never ends. Life is a set-up, and parenting is the punchline. As my mother once said, ‘I hope one day you have children. And then we’ll see who’s laughing.’
Publication date: April 2025
ISBN: 978-0-6398626-0-6
DIANE AWERBUCK is a prizewinning writer, reviewer, editor and teacher. She writes femme/goth thrillers (Home Remedies); memoirs (Gardening at Night); pandemic cowboy thrillers (South, as Frank Owen; North, as Frank Owen); doctorates on trauma (The Spirit and the Letter); holy-wholly poetry (As above, so below); and short story collections (Cabin Fever; Inside your body there are flowers). Tears Before Bedtime is her latest offering. She hopes you are sitting comfortably.
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