In this witty collection of motherhood tales, Konig (Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road
) recalls waving good-bye to her third child as he got on his first school bus. After three children, she was looking forward to some daytime peace and quiet—only she felt an all-too-familiar surge of nausea. At the suburban ob-gyn's office, the way they stared at her, “you'd think Grandma Moses” had walked in, so she retreated to her old city doctor, who acted like pregnant-over-40 was no big deal. Her husband and daughter and two sons cheerfully welcomed the newest family member—after all, “there's always room for another baby—kind of like Jell-O.” In 45 vignettes, Konig shares episodes of family life—singing to baby, sibling rivalry, Little League ups and downs. Such familiar turf is often more poignant than funny, although when she reaches deeper into her family's idiosyncrasies, she can be hilarious. Her husband, for instance, is an amusingly obsessive neighborhood wood scavenger; still, it took them so long to hook up their wood stove properly that their baby “smelled like a campfire.” Some sketches, like the one where Konig's figuring out her sons' Tamagotchi virtual pets, are surprisingly dated. But in the great tradition of Erma Bombeck, Konig makes it okay to be a little retro. (Aug.)
