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Welcome: Author Lucy Adams

meggansamom.com is proud to welcome Lucy Adams, Author of If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny.  Lucy is a Southern Humorist, successful Mommy Blogger, Syndicated Columnist, and a Mama.  Her book: If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny is a cross between Jeff Foxworthy and Erma Bombeck, with a dash of Bill Cosby.  This book, with its funny stories of family from three legged pigs to the pitfalls of the happiest (and hottest) place on Earth, will have you laughing out loud and it makes a GREAT Mother’s Day present…for a Mama of ANY age.  To order just click on the book to the left.  Also, enter a chance to win a FREE If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny baseball cap.  Simply email me at

meggan@meggansamom.com

The 10th email will be the winner!  Following is an interview I had with Lucy, concerning her life, her family, and all things funny with Mama.  For more information on Lucy, you can also go to www.ifmama.com

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR LUCY ADAMS

What is the inspiration behind your book, IF MAMA DON’T LAUGH, IT AIN’T FUNNY?

So many things inspired me to write If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny; My husband stayed after me about doing it. Readers of my weekly newspaper column frequently asked me when I planned to write a book.

The turning point came when a publisher called me and asked if I was interested in writing a how-to book on parenting.  Wow!  I was flattered.  But when I finally got my puffed up ego to sit down and be quiet, the reasonable, logical side of me said that it was dangerous territory to trod.  After all, my own children aren’t fully cooked.  I’ve yet to see the end product of my own parenting.  Who am I to tell someone else how to do it?  I had to call the publisher and decline the invitation.  While on the phone, however, with newfound confidence clutched in my sweaty palms, I pitched the idea for If Mama.  He liked it. If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny was also inspired by my need to prove that life is more than a collection of chaos bookended by rare moments of calm.  Every moment counts.  Every minute of every day has a purpose.  I have found that by learning to live in the little moments, I open myself to the biggest lessons and the best rewards. And, of course, humor. The smallest sliver of a second contains a complete journey. So much more happens between loads of laundry than wiping noses, folding shirts, and scrubbing the kitchen floor. In fact, most of life happens at the same time that I’m driving carpool, cleaning toilets, and scorching spaghetti.

Where did the title come from?

My husband actually coined the title. One evening at dinner, several years ago, one of my sons asked my husband to pass the rolls. Instead of passing the plate, the man tossed a roll to the child who bobbled it. Buttery bread left a long grease streak down the front of my child.

I was irritated at the poor display of table manners and at the challenge of getting butter stains out of navy blue pants. My husband could see it on my face, so he said, “Uh oh, y’all. Mama isn’t laughing. If Mama doesn’t laugh, it isn’t funny.”

The title evolved from there.

Life can get messy and stressful for all of us, how do you make life’s family “challenges” entertaining?

I usually don’t realize how entertaining the chaos is until the crisis du jour has passed. In the moment, I’m like every parent – I’m surviving. And I hope that in all the minutes that come between racing time to the grave, ha, ha, I’m teaching my children to laugh at themselves and take life’s ups and downs lightly.

P.M. (Pre-Mom) what is your background?

I attended the University of Georgia, where I met my husband, and earned a B.S. in education. I got married smack dab in the middle of working on my M.S. in psychology at Augusta State University. Then, I had my first baby two years into studying for my doctorate in developmental psychology. Within 15 months, I was pregnant again.

Needless to say, that Ph.D. goal got put aside to make room for being a mama; an over-educated mama who thought that everything about parenting could be read in a text book. One day my mother said, “Get your nose out of those books and just go with your gut.” It was the best advice I ever received. I digress.

You say that you are a Southern humorist. For those of us not familiar with the South, can you expand on what that means.

It means I can use bad grammar in my book title and get away with it. It means I can use phrases like “frog choking rain,” and “I ain’t gonna hit a lick at a stick today even if a cow hooks me,” and I’m instantly forgiven because I’m southern. That’s just how we talk. I can point out that here in the south we love our cousins, our guns, and our liquor, and folks don’t take it the wrong way. Mostly because it’s true.

Mostly it means that I poke good-hearted fun at myself and my roots. I grew up in rural Georgia and am a life-long student of the vernacular and colloquialisms of my part of the country. Some pretty crazy things get said on the bench in front of the feed store, where the owner swears he’s got what I need to “feed ever’thin” from my monkey to my mother-in-law.

You have columns, a blog, and a book, along with a family to raise. When do you write?

Working full-time and raising a family can pose barriers to a writing career. I write in every sliver of time I can find. I keep a notebook and a pen with me at all times. Ideas suddenly come to me and I have to write them down or I’ll never remember them. Sometimes I get inspired and write an entire story on the back of my grocery list while standing in the middle of aisle 9. Sometimes I dictate to my 13 year-old when ideas come to me while I’m driving. I jot things down in waiting rooms, dressing rooms, and bathrooms. I have lots of scraps of paper stashed here, there, and everywhere with various notes. Often, writing a story is like piecing a puzzle together, literally.

What is your favorite story from IF MAMA. What is your kids favorite story?

My favorite story is “I Hope I’m Getting Smaller,” about an interaction with my then 4 year-old daughter about loving “bad guys” and what God would want us to do.  We shared an amazing moment when I had a revelation about my relationship with my daughter, as well as about how she and I both understand God.  It was such a profound experience; tears fill my eyes every time I read that story.

Another of my favorites is about Noah, the three legged pig. But that story is best consumed a little bit at a time, so I won’t go into detail here.

My kids almost unanimously chose a story titled “Taking Inventory” all the things we found when we cleaned out our minivan one afternoon.

How has being a Mother affected your perception of your own upbringing?

That’s a good question. I think like most people, in my twenties I questioned my parents’ ways of doing things. I could name every mistake they made raising my siblings and me. But as I’ve gotten older and wiser (mostly older), and mistake prone myself, I realize that there’s no such thing as perfection. I am very thankful that God chose my parents for me and that I grew up in the time and place that I did.

You should know, however, that because of the things my older brother and I got away with – setting the woods on fire, riding our horses to the convenience store 10 miles away, dropping the cat out of the hay loft, floating on our pond inside of black trash bags (it must have looked like giant mold spores) – I make an extra effort to monitor my kids a little closer than our parents watched us.

How do your kids/husband feel about having their family life written about?

I have to admit, there’ve been a couple of pieces I published that sent my husband over the edge. He has actually given me a list of things I can’t print about him in the newspaper. For example, I can never write that he “squealed like a school girl.” And every now and then my parents will question something I put in print. My friends laughingly say things like, “Uh oh, you’re not going to put that in the paper are you?”

But my children seem to go out of their way to give me topics to write about. I even find myself lecturing them on not doing brainless things just to see if I’ll write about them.

Is there a story not in the book that you would like to share?

I’ll share a tidbit that went out in my last e-zine: Only A Mama . . .

My son hit an in -field fly-ball during his middle school baseball game.  He made the obligatory trot toward first base, but his posture screamed, “I’m out.  I can’t believe I did that.”

As soon as the umpire held up his fist and called, “Out!” officially, my child turned toward the dugout, defeatedly jogging off the field.

Looking toward the plate, I saw that he still had a mess to clean up, so I called out from the bleachers, “Pick up your bat, Honey!”

The parent sitting to my left mumbled, “That’s something you would never hear a dad say at a baseball game.”

Do your kids think you are funny?

Probably not in the same way that adults do. They think that they are funny and I’m just telling other people about it. They do love to hear me tell a story about them, though.

My 13 year-old is at that age when not only does he think I’m not funny, but he is embarrassed that he even has a mother. Secretly, though, he loves when people ask him about something I wrote in the paper.

What is next for Lucy Adams, can we look forward to another book?

I’m currently working on my second book of humor about the tight places and uncomfortable conversations in which we find ourselves; you know, like walking out of a bathroom with my skirt tucked in my panties. Look for it in the summer of 2010.

My blog series on Southern Girls Living Fearlessly will continue. I’m also working on turning it into a monthly column, and, in the future, a humorous book of off-center advice from a woman learning it as she goes.

*I did not receive a product sample or compensation for this post.  The views expressed here are my own.