Last week, we featured a Q&A with Jill Smokler, the mastermind behind the new book and same-titled blog Confessions of a Scary Mommy. If, like us, you're a longtime follower of Smokler's every-charming and witty personal stories, we promise — you are going to love this book!

For new friends and followers, here's a brief synopsis of this must-read for mamas:

Confessions of a Scary Mommy is a collection of original essays that take an irreverent look at the underbelly of parenting — things most moms would never admit, but feel every day. Brutally honest and hysterically funny, Confessions will leave you feeling less alone in the sometimes overwhelming and exhausting world of motherhood. If you’re already a fan, lock the bathroom door on your whining kids, run a bubble bath, and settle in. If you’ve not encountered Scary Mommy before, break out a glass of champagne as well, because you’ll be toasting your initiation into a very select club.

Chapters cover everything from husbands (“If he could be carried around in a Baby Bjorn all day, he would.”) to other people’s kids (“Other people’s kids are just useless, bad influences who play no necessary role in our lives.”) to PTA fundraisers (“It brings out the worst in people…and who wants an overpriced roll of wrapping paper, anyway? How about something we actually want to buy? Alcohol, for instance.”) Each chapter begins with the best anonymous confessions from Smokler’s popular online Confessional.

Whether you’re a mom, a dad, a grandmother, a grandfather, an aunt, an uncle, a teacher, a godparent, or a teenager in need of birth control, Confessions of a Scary Mommy will be sure to leave you nodding your head in agreement and laughing out loud. (From Amazon.)

Enter to win a copy of Confessions of a Scary Mommy:

Editor’s note: This is a weekly digest of stories we’re following — trends, news you can use and provocative parenting reads. Do you have a good read for us? Write emurray@parentmap.com.

1. Coverage of the Time Magazine "Are You Mom Enough" cover. By now, you’ve probably seen the image on Time's Mother's Day package on attachment parenting: An L.A. model (yes, a model) breastfeeding her three-year-old son as he stands on a chair, a pose that’s not only unrealistic but seems designed to make him older than he is.

The good news is that, sensationalized as it may be, the cover did spark an online discussion among bloggers that’s as thoughtful as that image is one-dimensional. Read blogger/comedian Jason Good's funny and forthright piece on the male/dad perspective  "From Breasts to Boobs and Back Again"; Motherlode blogger's KJ Dell'Antonia incisive deconstruction of the loaded question "Are You Mom Enough and follow-up post on the U.S.' dismal ranking on breastfeeding support; Lisa Belkin's look at a number of recent breastfeeding-in-public controversies; a Boston pediatrician mom's personal take on attachment parenting ("My co-sleeping and baby-wearing weren't about making anybody well-adjusted. I just wanted to get some sleep and get stuff done"); and finally, Ask Moxie's "Open Letter to Time Magazine," a Gettysburg-address-short plea to Time.

By Malia Jacobson

Is bedtime a battle? Here are eight easy tips that have helped many of my readers’ kids sleep easier. Put them to work at your house, and see if bedtime doesn't get a whole lot better.

1. Play with timing

For babies and toddlers, a better bedtime is often a matter of timing. Overtiredness may be causing your child’s bedtime shenanigans; try moving bedtime earlier by 15-20 minutes.

2. Later, gator

Alternately, your child may need to be awake longer before hitting the sack. If your child seems amenable to sleep (i.e. she isn’t crazy-hyper, but she just.can’t.sleep, and keeps calling you back into her room endlessly) try moving bedtime 30 minutes later.

3. Toy story

Toddlers love the delay bedtime in any way possible, and a bedroom filled with toys and books provides the perfect opportunity. If your child is throwing fits at bedtime for just one more story or just one more plaything, it’s time to move these distracting items someplace else. Keep 2-3 books and a few cherished comfort items in the bedroom, and move the rest.

Today, we're giving away a family four-pack to see Studio East's production of Disney's My Son Pinocchio. The tickets are for the Friday, June 1, 7:30 p.m. show at Studio East MainStage in Kirkland.

To enter to win the tickets, simply leave a comment on this post about why you would love to get these tickets. Include your email in Disqus (not publicly) so that we can contact you!

Additional entries will be given for the following (leave an extra comment for each action to let us know):

By Keren Brown

You’ve  got your hands full. A phrase that has been heard so many times in the last seven months that every time I here “You‘ve got...” my face automatically cracks out a fake smile, a completely effortful grin, and I mutter  on autopilot, "I sure do.” Anyone juggling a new infant can imagine the work that goes into raising twins: double the diapers, double the energy, half the sleep, half the time to yourself. But all of that seems relatively doable when you consider the energy expended making enough milk for the twins and hunching over so that two warm little bodies can tug away at your nipples.

But what makes nursing twins so different and actually so hard is the lack of support from the surroundings.  When you have a baby, everyone is so gung-ho about you nursing. People buy you nursing covers, they ask you which pump you are getting, they get you books about nursing and everyone has a story about their friend who has a toddler who can walk and talk and nurse at the same time.

With twins, it is  the total opposite. From the very beginning, you are told about bottle holders that you can get, the twins books will tell you all about little fridges you can get so the bottles are right next to your room and before your baby comes even close to you, bottles are shoved down their throats.

As a pregnant mom, I heard it over and over: You are going to have to do bottles.  Are you sure you want to breastfeed? I prepared myself mentally for the bottle feeding, as I knew it would be par for the course.  I remember getting the twins a breastfeeding pillow known as “My Brest Friend” and showing it to the friends who came to jump on my bed and comfort me while confined to bed rest. We googled images of moms breastfeeding twins like it was one big freak show, a large tree with two monkeys hanging on each side. It didn’t matter that I breastfed my oldest 18 months, I mentally prepared myself that I might not be able to nurse the twins.

By Lea Geller

The kids are coming home from school this week and telling me that they’re making remarkable Mother’s Day presents, but they can’t divulge any specific details (book mark) lest the surprise (flower pot) be ruined (picture frame). Fi never met a secret she could keep, and willingly told me she’s made me a bracelet and necklace. Oh goody, I do so love jewelry.

Truthfully, there’s a small part of me that thinks the best Mother’s Day gift the kids can give me would be a few days away with their father. But then I think, Who Will Love My Children?

Remember that 1980′s tear-fest, in which a destitute, dying mother of ten (Ann Margaret) has to find a home for each of her beautifully behaved farm kids before she passes?

I remember seeing it as a child, and being so awfully sad (Not quite Watership Down sad (I needed oxygen after that), or even E.T. sad, but still rather shaken). I know I can’t quite draw the parallels. But NOBODY wants to take five kids at once, or at least not these five, so I immediately think about that flick whenever I contemplate a getaway for M and me. I’d have to get on the phone and plead with various friends and relatives, starting with the more challenging kids first, knowing that some will be far easier to place than others. And thanks to this blog, I could never get away with the kind of lying I’d have gladly done before: She eats anything you put in front of her.  He’s an absolute angel, you won’t know he’s there! Don’t be afraid of those pointy, buck teeth – she’s never bit anyone.