My Life, Loves and Passion: Tatted Mom's Guide to NOT Screwing Up Your Kids Book Tour. Plus my author interview!

Author Bio:

Morgan Moss is the creator of The Inklings of Life humor parenting blog (www.theinklingsoflife.com), which was named a Top 10 Mom Blog of 2013 by the parenting website VoiceBoks (www.voiceboks.com). Many of her parenting and motherhood articles have been featured on sites such as the Huffington Post, Babble, WhatToExpect.com, Mamapedia, Parent Society and BlogHer.com. She is a trained tattoo artist, and spends her free time creating mixed media art.

Author Links -

Blog | www.theinklingsoflife.com

Facebook | www.facebook.com/theinklingsoflife

Twitter | www.twitter.com/tattedmom81

Pinterest www.pinterest.com/tattedmom

Goodreads | www.goodreads.com/TattedMom

Amazon: www.amazon.com/Morgan-Moss/e/B00FFO8NU0/

Book Genre: Nonfiction Parenting/ Humor Parenting

Publisher: Inklings Print

Release Date: October 17, 2013

Book Description:

Motherhood is chaotic.
Some days are filled with unicorns and fairy dust, and some days the unicorn craps on your brand new rug and the fairies are flying around, crashing into walls. Mainstream parenting books help with the unicorn and fairy dust days, but what happens when your kid drops the f-bomb in a crowded grocery store?

That's where "Tatted Mom's Guide to NOT Screwing Up Your Kids" comes into play, tackling situations in motherhood that you were definitely not warned about. Think of this book as your manual to the parenting problems that leave you throwing your hands up in the air, wondering if you are the only mom who goes through this craziness, and has you hiding in the back of your closet with a bottle of Moscato and a cheesecake (we've all been there).

"Tatted Mom's Guide to NOT Screwing Up Your Kids" includes:
~The myths that mainstream parenting books tell you, and how they don't apply to every mother.
~How to deal with temper tantrums from toddlers to tweens.
~How to "win" the various battles you will have with your children (like the Personal Hygiene Battle and the Clothing Battle)
~Tips on dealing with picky eaters and the difficult potty trainee.
~Helping build your tween's self esteem and creating a strong family unit.
~Motherly advice on parenting from birth until the tweenaged years (around 12 years old)
~Mom Competition, unplugging your kids, chores, peer pressure and more!

Written by an unconventional, tattooed, colorful mother whose out-of-the-box parenting tips have proven successful for many families, regardless of parenting style, "Tatted Mom's Guide to NOT Screwing Up Your Kids" weaves together helpful advice with humorous stories from the author's own trials and tribulations as a mom, as well as stories from other moms and dads on their own parenting journeys.
So get the kids in bed, grab a glass of wine and something sweet from your hidden stash of goodies (we all have one of those, too), and crack open "Tatted Mom's Guide to NOT Screwing Up Your Kids". Your mom-sanity will thank you.

Excerpt:

From Chapter 7: Fixing More Than Macaroni and Cheese

Myth #1: Fixing my kids what they want ensures that they are at least eating something. If I don’t fix them what they’ll eat, they’ll starve.

Tatted Mom’s Truth #1: Your child will not starve themselves. I can 100% guarantee it. These are the same kids who make mud pies in the back yard and try them out to see what they taste like. They will not pass down a hot meal of seafood alfredo because the little shrimps look gross. They reason so many moms use this as an excuse is because they try for one meal to get their kids to branch out, and when it doesn’t work, they give up. Let the kids skip that meal. I promise you, they won’t skip the next one. And don’t go letting them have snacks after the dinner they refused to eat, either. That just reinforces the horrible eating habits. This whole picky eating thing is usually a test of wills with kids. They love macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets, so they turn down everything else put in front of them until you feed them their favorite meal again, and they stick to it. The more you give in, the more they will take advantage of you.

Tips for Creating Healthy Eating Habits in Children

Introduce your kids to the kitchen as soon as possible. Each of my kids was around the age of two when I had them actually help me prepare meals, but even before that, I’d put them in their high chair, give them a snack and pull the high chair into the kitchen while I prepared a meal with fresh meat and vegetables. I’ve always had my kids pick out meals for us, help cut vegetables, or even given them easy instructions for sauces. When they were too young for any of these options, I had them hand me things so I could cook. A toddler feels like king of the world when you say to him, “Hand Mommy that spoon right there, please,” and even if he hands you the salt, a random apple or the cat instead, he’s a big boy who helped his mom make dinner. Having the kids interact with the cooking process almost guarantees them to eat it, because their pride will kick in, as well as their curiosity. They’ll think, “I helped make this sauce, so I wonder if it sucks or not.” Plus, they’ll see that, despite the fact that those shrimp look like fat worms, no worms went into the making of the meal.
Put the “Mom is eating something, I want a bite” quirk of motherhood to work for you. It never fails. As soon as you go to take a bite of your favorite cake or try and sneak a single M&M into your mouth as a mom, your child will appear out of nowhere and ask for a bite. I can remember one afternoon, when I was chopping up red peppers to go on a vegetable tray for a cookout we were going to, and as I popped a fresh red pepper slice into my mouth and started crunching away, The Girl, two at the time, appeared out of thin air and asked for a bite. I stared at the red pepper for a moment and thought there was no way she would eat it- two year olds didn’t eat fresh red peppers. But, I handed her one anyway, she took a bite, and happily trotted off with a smile on her face. No dressing on it, no salt, nothing, and the child ate it and returned for a second one. Nine years later she’s not a fan of red peppers anymore, but when I put a vegetable tray out for us to munch on, she’ll eat carrots, celery, raw broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. This concept worked at introducing my kids to sushi, too. Hubby and I love the stuff, so we would get some for just us and order the kids stir fry or their favorite Asian dish. Curiosity got the best of both of them, and soon they wanted to see why Hubby and I loved sushi so much. We let them try it, and they were hooked.

Interview

I love your book! When and what made you decide to write your parenting book?

I started my humor parenting blog, The Inklings of Life, back in 2010 when I had left the world of tattooing and body piercing to become a stay-at-home mom again. Over the years of blogging, I had several different readers tell me I should write a parenting book, so when my life settled back down again in 2013, I set to work on it.

Did you start with an outline or just write until you felt it was done?

I actually started by going through my blog and the articles I had written for various parenting websites and picking out topics from those that I knew I wanted to cover in my book. I separated my book into four sections- The Baby Years, The Toddler Years, The Kid Years and The Tween Years, and set to work organizing my existing topics by section, and seeing what areas I needed to add. In fact, chapter 6, “The Toilet Lock” was not even on the original outline, and was added in at the last minute because I knew I wanted a chapter on childproofing. So, I had an outline, and wrote until I felt the book was done.

I have 4 little ones and have a hard time finding time to do anything. How is it writing when you have children running around you all day and constantly need everything?

When I wrote my actual book, my kids were 11 and 8, so I only wrote during school hours to relish the quiet. But, when I first started my blog, my son was only in a half day kindergarten, and I found that I could not write when he was home. So, I started setting an alarm and getting up an hour before I had to get everyone else up in the mornings, just so I had time to have a cup of coffee and write in peace.

What challenges did you face publishing your book?

I actually had decided from the beginning to self-publish my book, after reading several hundred horror stories about rejection letters from publishing companies for first-time authors. I had previously chosen one publishing company that I felt would do my book justice, and sent my book proposal to them, knowing that a rejection letter wouldn’t stop me. Sure enough, the rejection letter came, but at that point I was only about 2 months away from publishing it myself, so the rejection letter honestly didn’t even phase me. The biggest challenge with self-publishing that I’ve found is self-promotion. You don’t have a big publishing house behind you telling you what to do, so if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. Word of mouth only gets you so far; the rest is good ol’ fashioned nose to the grindstone.

Did you ever think that you would be a writer?

To be completely honest, no, I didn’t. My mom is a writer, so I grew up around writing, but I headed in more of the art direction as I got older. I love working with my hands, so I’ve made jewelry and natural bath and beauty products, and became a tattoo artist and body piercer- writing wasn’t really a huge part of who I was. When I became a stay-at-home mom again, though, I needed an outlet. So, I started blogging. I never really considered myself a writer, even when I started writing parenting articles for various websites. The book idea came as a surprise to me, but I enjoy challenges, so I decided to write a book. It’s only been since the book was published that I think of myself as a writer, and I’m pretty happy with that curveball life threw me. Now I plan to branch out into writing fiction in the future. The feeling writing gives me is pretty amazing now.

Thank you for the interview! Is there anything else you would like to say to your readers?

You’re very welcome, and thank you for featuring me! I want to thank my readers for their support and help in keeping me motivated to make them laugh!