Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay

Stefanie Wilder-Taylor's foray into the glutted world of motherly advice literature, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay: And Other Things I Had to Learn as a New Mom, is an amusing take on the trials and tribulations of navigating motherhood for the first time. Like Celia Rivenbark, Wilder-Taylor is an older first-time mom who seems to think that motherhood is somehow more intimidating or challenging at 35 than it is at 25. (That's bullshit, btw).

Wilder-Taylor offers up nothing new here but her humorous tone and pithy observations make the book, if nothing else (and it is nothing else), a brainless, easy read into issues that every mom can relate to--from the other moms on the playground to the breastfeeding Nazis to the sleep-training fascists. She's obviously trying to be funny and for the most part, she succeeds. I think I might recommend this book to anyone who has tried to breastfeed a baby and had little success or enjoyment from it, since Wilder-Taylor had that experience and writes about it with a decent amount of understanding and empathy.

No matter how many of these advice books you read, your kids will always find ways to surprise you and other moms will pull out meals or disciplinary tactics that you'd expect to find in the African bush or the Spanish Inquisition. Wilder-Taylor gets that.

I liked it. I'm not sure I'd run out and buy it, but if you need a snarky pick-me-up and you're hanging with the under 7 crowd, it's a good one for you.