Rebecca Eckler subtitles her very funny memoir of her first months of motherhood “life with a pint-size dictator.”

Reading Eckler will send every mom who reads it straight back to those days when her own kids were demanding little blobs of

fragility. Babies are so needy, so greedy for your love, milk, and time. No matter how distant, those days when your heart is no

longer your own but beats simply to see your little ones safely through infancy will feel instantly familiar. As will the way, as

much as we love, adore, and insist this babe be attached to at least one of our hips at all times, we sometimes long for pieces

of our old pre-mommy lives back: whittled waistlines, party nights, freedom to write, to work, or to read a novel in the middle of t

the day.

Eckler’s new mom world has some intriguing differences from mine twenty-something years ago. She lives with baby and

fiancé, but has no firm plans for a wedding. (Not judging here. I divorced the father of my kids when they were still in

elementary school.) And then there’s the nanny. (My former marriage could have quite possibly been saved by a nanny.) And

also Canada, that wonderful land of health care for all and a year’s child care leave for every working parent. Eckler got her

career in order before having baby Rowan so after that year, she had a good job to go back to, a writing job she loved. Despite

the nanny, the job, and the fiancé, all does not go smoothly for Eckler. Rowan has changed everything about her mother’s life:

her friendships, her writing, where and how she lives. But change, in this case, is mostly good and always truly, deeply, funny.

By Cindy Harrison