Waiting for Birdy

 

Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family by Catherine Newman

Nonfiction

2005

Finished on October 21, 2026

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

To fifty thousand readers, Catherine Newman is the beloved author of Bringing Up Ben & Birdy, a weekly column on babycenter.com. Now in the delightfully candid, outlandishly funny Waiting for Birdy, Newman charts the year she anticipated the birth of her second child while also coping with the realities of raising a toddler. As she navigates life with her existentially curious and heartbreakingly sweet three-year-old, and her doozy of a pregnancy, she lends her irresistibly unique voice to the secret thoughts and fears of parents everywhere. Filled with quirky warmth and razor-sharp wit, Waiting for Birdy captures the universal wonder, terror, humor, and tenderness of raising a family.

My daughter turns forty-three in December, so I'm not exactly the target audience for this memoir, but having read (and loved) Catherine Newman's more recent works, I wanted to give Waiting for Birdy a read since I enjoy her humor so well. I was not disappointed. Newman shares her thoughts and feelings about her experiences as a soon-to-be mother of two, which had me stifling laughter as I read in bed, trying hard to not wake my husband as I snorted and chuckled with each new tale. Three-year-old Ben's questions and conversations with his mother are both sweet and hilarious. If you've read Newman's novels (We All Want Impossible Things, Sandwich and Wreck), you won't want to skip this book.

Highly recommend!

Links to my reviews:

We All Want Impossible Things (5/5)

Sandwich (5/5)

Wreck (4/5)