Review: When Did I Get Like This? By Amy Wilson

Title: When Did I Get Like This?:

The Screamer, The Worrier, the Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget Buyer,
and Other Mothers I Swore I'd Never Be
Author: Amy Wilson
Genre: Memoir, humor, nonfiction, adult
Publication: 2010
Source: For review, TLC

When Did I Get Like This? is the hilarious and delightful memoir of Amy Wilson, actress, constant worrier, and most of all, mother of three: Connor, age 6, Seamus, age 4, and Maggie, age 1.

Amy chronicles many of her mommy tales in this book, from Seamus' innocently inappropriate touching in public of his "wiener" (his word, not mine), to Connor's inability to lie (claiming he showered, but really just wetting his hair in the sink), to Maggie's puking adventure on a flight to Florida... she puked, what, 8 times? She wonders all the time if she's good enough, cut out to be a mom. She wonders what profile picture to post on Facebook, something that says, "I'm not a boring mom." She wonders if she should hold Seamus back a year in pre-K because he's struggling to socialize properly.

Each chapter is its own story, and all of them are funny... some are hilarious, and some are even touching. In one chapter, she discusses the cutting edge lifestyle of Manhattan preschools (harder to get into than Harvard), in another, she talks about the weekend Connor brings home Penny the Pig stuffed animal from school. Each family had to add to Penny's scrapbook, and Amy desperately wanted to measure up, setting up elaborate photo shoots and downloading scrapbooking software to complete her pages. She wanted Penny to have her best weekend yet at her house.

I thought this book was really pretty funny, and I loved the dialogues she added in of various discussions she's had with her children, husband and others. I particularly enjoyed Seamus' voice, that of a painfully honest, childish speaker: "You are not de best mommy. In anudder house, there is pwobby a mommy who is gooder. But it's twue. You still a good mommy. You're zust not the best mommy" (232-33). This. cracked. me. up.

This is a great little memoir, one that made me chuckle, and both look forward to and dread motherhood. Amy is hysterical, honest, genuine, and someone I would love to be friends with. I'm not a mom yet, but I enjoyed the book anyways. I think mothers would enjoy it even more, and I have passed it on to my own mom to read next.

My Rating: 4/5