Let’s be honest. Nobody wants to sit next to that chipper mom at playgroup who knows everything. Please. You want to plop down by the mom who’s just as clueless and cranky as you are and have a good, hearty, conspiratorial laugh together. Because that mom gets it. That mom makes you feel better. That mom isn’t afraid to admit that chicken nuggets are one of her household’s major food groups (though she is fraught with guilt over it). That mom is just like you. That mom is DeeDee Filiatreault, a regular housewife with fairly normal kids (if there is such a thing). But unlike you, she writes all her ridiculous family stuff down (for her newspaper column and blog) with wit, snark, heart, faith, and far fewer swear words than she’s probably thinking. Her writings have yet to appear in the New Yorker or HuffPo, she doesn’t go on morning shows to dole out parenting advice (mainly because she doesn’t really have any), and she doesn’t have a weird, new hook for a “mom-oir” like how she survived a year of family dumpster-diving or co-parenting her children with wolves. She doesn’t have eighteen kids either, just two. And oh yeah, only one husband (as required by state law.)

This collection of DeeDee’s favorite columns and writings spans her first near-decade in the mom business. Reading it is like plunking down next to that funny mom at playgroup. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll feel less lonely in this thing. And you may even feel a little superior. (That alone might be worth the price tag.) Just come and sit down next to her.