Melanie Dale

Sometimes when life falls apart the only acceptable response is hysterical laughter. It s Not Fair by Melanie Dale uses humor in the face of life s roughest moments, raw honesty with a God who can handle the pain, and encouragement and hope as your companion on a difficult journey. Life s not fair, but Melanie Dale will help you learn to love your life---even if it s a life you didn t choose."

Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

It's Not Fair

Hey, you. Are you debating whether to destroy something with your bare hands or curl up on the couch for a decade or two? This book will solve all of your problems. (Sheesh, that's aiming a bit high.) This book is a cup of hot coffee, a ginormous bar of chocolate, or the magical fairy that comes over and does your dishes while you lie in the fetal position clutching a fluffy pillow. Sometimes when life falls apart the only acceptable response is hysterical laughter. When things get so far gone, so spectacularly a world away from any plans you made or dreams you dreamed, you feel it bubbling up inside of you and you scream, "It's not fair!" And it isn't. Fair is an illusion, and life is weird. This book will help you laugh at life's absurd backhands. This book is an empathetic groan of our collective unfairnesses. You might want to throw it across the room, and you might want to hug it like your new best friend. This book is about us sitting down together in our shared mess, taking a deep breath, gripping hands, looking the hard stuff in its beady little eyeballs, and bahahahaaing at it. Life's not fair, but we can learn to love this life we didn't choose.

From author and speaker Melanie Dale comes a laugh-out-loud hilarious parenting book that teaches you how to dial back the stress of raising children with the simple premise that we all just need to lighten up a little bit. Most of us thought we’d be amazing parents—and then we had kids. Now we spend what little free time we have comparing ourselves to other parents, comparing our kids to other kids, and panicking that everyone else is nailing it except us. Between constant social media postings to conflicting advice found in parenting books, we often have no choice but to freak out. But there is another way. We all just need to calm the h*ck down. Melanie Dale—a special needs parent, adoptive parent, in vitro parent, and reluctant cheer mom—believes we are all putting too much pressure on ourselves and our kids to be perfect. Instead, she argues, we need to take a step back so we can actually enjoy this journey called parenting. Calm the H*ck Down is filled with stories from Melanie’s own life, as well as real-life research for learning how to lighten up about every aspect of parenting—from poopy diapers and germs to family vacations and adolescent angst. She also discusses the pressure to knock it all out of the Pinterest park, the challenge of instilling some kind of faith into your kids, and worrying about their future while still trying to live in the present. Infused with quirky humor, profound insight, and accessible advice, Calm the H*ck Down gives you the permission to finally relax and enjoy this ridiculous thing we do called parenting.

How to Let Go and Lighten Up About Parenting

Calm the H*ck Down

Offers a light-hearted but sincere guide for mothers, with advice on developing relationships with other moms using the dating process as an analogy, and arguing for the importance of social bonds between mothers to individuals and communities.

The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

Women Are Scary

Let's see . . . this is the part where I convince you that you need this book. This book will massage your feet. This book will bring you a fuzzy blanket at the end of a long day of parenting your tiny little insanazoids. I promise to make you snort laugh at least once. After reading this book, you'll rock jazz hands, be able to sing on-key, and never, ever have to fold laundry again. Okay, they told me I'm actually supposed to tell you a little about the book. Um, right. Look. Here's the thing. Too many of us women are frazzled and lonely, isolated in our minivans while schlepping bags, strollers, and munchkins to and fro across town. It doesn't have to be this way. In this guide to "momlationships," I use a dating analogy to take us "around the bases" to our home-run friendships, the ones that last a lifetime, not just a soccer season. This is our journey to each other, to finding our people and being other people's people, learning how to bless each other and not destroy each other. It's sometimes scary. And always awkward. Let's have some fun.

Melanie Dale

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