The Life-Changing Madness of Tidying Up After Children (Crash Test Parents, #2)

Would you rather try to keep a tidy house with kids around or clean up after a tornado every day? It's about the same.
When you're a parent, you spend a considerable amount of time working as an unpaid maid. You pick up something your kid left on the floor just so he can throw it down again. Upon entering parenthood, your aspirations for a clean and tidy house soar out the window, flying on wings of impossibility.
And maybe that's as it should be.
From the voice behind the popular Crash Test Parents blog comes Book 2 of the series by the same name. With wit and eloquence, Rachel tells the true story of what it's like to dream of a tidy house and live in the reality of parenthood, where kids thwart your tidying efforts at every turn.
The Life-Changing Madness of Tidying Up After Children includes hilarious and entertaining essays like:
What Do Scissors Have to Do With an Untidy Home? Pretty Much Everything.
Astounding Stockpiles in Which to Lose Yourself
On Storage Solutions: Pursue Ultimate Lockdown
The Most Common Battlegrounds for Entropy
Tidying Language is Lost in Translation
The Confidence You Gain in Your Tidying Attempts: You Will Fail at Lesser Things
LEGOs: The Safest Explosion You'll Ever Survive (And Also the Most Annoying)
The Whole World's a Canvas (Especially When It Has Walls)
Where Are All My Household Utensils?
and many more.
Called "the Erma Bombeck of a new generation of parents," Rachel's second full-length book of essays in the Crash Test Parents series is sure to make you laugh out loud and then promptly hug your children-because they really are messy little treasures.
Rachel is the mother of six young boys who daily give her inspiration for comical essays. Her essays can often be seen on Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy and Babble. She lives with all her males in San Antonio, Texas, where she faithfully writes 5,000 words a day, five days a week.

The themes of identity and love amid difficult circumstances often show up in Rachel Toalson's writing, and no matter their age, gender or genre preferences, readers around the world enjoy and anticipate her hopeful message of bravery, transparency and the the human capacity to change the world, at least a small part of it.
She is the author of the middle grade fantasy series, Fairendale, (under the pen name R.L. Toalson) about a tyrant king (who may not be quite as bad as he seems) pursuing a group of magical children who become what we know as fairy tale villains, for one good reason or another; the nonfiction Family on Purpose series, which chronicles her family's daily journey into values; and This is How You Know, a book of poetry on the daily ordinary that becomes extraordinary when filtered through the lens of poetry.
Rachel Toalson's own journey into writing is a long and straight-line one. She began penning stories in small-town Texas on white computer paper back when she was a kid. When she got to college, she rose through the ranks of her college newspaper, this time telling true stories. That's where her writing career began-sitting with sources, gathering information, soaking up the stories of everyday life.
In 2015, Rachel ended her newspaper days as a managing editor, with multiple writing accolades accrued over the years, so that she could become a full-time author of both fiction and nonfiction. In her fiction she enjoys crafting tales of quirky characters who are more than what they seem on first glance. In her nonfiction, she enjoys writing about real life, real love, real struggles and the humor underlining much of our human experience. She writes middle grade fiction and picture books under the pen name R.L. Toalson; poetry, memoir and humor under Rachel Toalson; and narrative nonfiction stories and literature under Rachel L. Toalson.
Rachel is a regular contributor to Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy, a Bundle of THYME magazine and many other publications across the world.
Born in Houston, Rachel lives with her husband and six boys in San Antonio, Texas, where she faithfully writes 5,000 words a day, five days a week.