Mom’s Choice Awards® Gold Recipient

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Scott Benner’s Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal Honored with Mom’s Choice Award

May 16, 2013, Ann Arbor, MI

Author Scott Benner’s best-selling parenting book, Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad, has been named a 2013 recipient of the Gold distinction from Mom’s Choice Awards®. 

Globally recognized for establishing the standard of excellence in family-friendly media, products and services, Mom’s Choice Awards® honored Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal as an outstanding book within its “Adult Books: Parenting—Contemporary Families” category. An esteemed panel of judges that includes industry leaders in education, publishing, parenting, the performing arts, science, and medicine evaluated the book based on its production quality, design, educational value, entertainment value, originality, appeal, and cost. Products that receive honors from Mom’s Choice Awards® help families grow emotionally, physically and spiritually; they are morally sound and promote good will; and they are inspirational and uplifting.

A pithy, modern parenting book written from the viewpoint of a seasoned stay-at-home father with an inspiring story and an irreverent sense of humor, Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal delivers both hilarity and perspective to readers everywhere. With a wide range of topics that anchor individual chapters (fatherhood, marriage, sex, gender roles, diabetes, laundry, “dropping the baby”), the book is an entertaining collection of stories about the mishaps and misadventures of parenting.

According to Library Journal, “[Benner] asserts the secret to happiness is to never stop and never give up … his unabashed “dad humor” brings a distinct charm to his writing without being mawkish or overly sentimental.” The NYC Dad’s Group declared, "Scott Benner’s book, Life is Short, Laundry is Eternal, is a book that proves that the family route is one that is paved with bumps and washed with tears, but filled with fun and love."

Through the lens of Scott Benner’s experiences, readers are reminded that the path to happiness is paved by figuring out how to turn life’s challenges into life’s rewards. Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal tells the story of an American family that has overcome an array of obstacles to discover peace and joy within their own home.    

Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal is available everywhere that books are sold and on all eBook formats.

What Lies Beyond My Understanding

That's Kris in the red shirt

I like to wonder about the things that I struggle to understand. I find it relaxing to think about something that I can not fully absorb and then push myself to grasp every facet until I can feel my mind stop trying. That point is the wall, it's the end of my understanding. The topics vary, often I think about type I diabetes, my marriage, my children, what happiness is. Lately, if I'm being honest, I think a lot about how to help my book to find new readers.

I love the quiet that exists when my brain doesn't know where to go next. I don't consider hitting that wall as an impediment, I find it exciting, I trust that new concepts will eventually appear and that anticipation is electric. Sometimes nothing comes, I take those moments as a sign that I'm in uncharted waters, a place that I've yet to explore and I find the challenge to discover new ideas to be intellectually sexy.

Recently at the 2013 Lilly Diabetes Blogger Summit, I realized that there was a new place where answers about type I lived, a place that I didn't yet understand how to get to. That moment was exciting because it meant that one day I could do an even better job of keeping Arden's BGs in range. I like that idea very much.

Olympic skier Kris Freeman visited with our group at Lilly and during part of the discussion that we had with him, he spoke about his team. There are people that help Kris to optimize his insulin regiment so that he can perform at the peak of his promise. His team has, of course, access to machines and monitoring equipment that I don't have. More importantly they posses the know-how and intellectual prowess (far beyond mine) to read Kris's data and implement changes. Now, I don't have a team and I'm not a doctor but neither of those truths brought me down, on the contrary... they made me feel hopeful. If a bunch of smart guys can figure out how to keep an Olympic skier's BG from fluctuating, I can figure out how to mimic that response in a little girl whose sitting in a third grade class and playing softball a few times a week - right!?

It should be known that despite the vigorous testing, his team's calculations aren't always fool proof. Kris told us a story about a wildly varied BG that snuck up on him just before a race. His tale left me sure that diabetes is a wild bucking stallion for everyone at times. I loved how normal I felt listening to an Olympic athlete tell me that his BGs got crazy just like Arden's, it was so genuinely comforting to hear him speak those words.

Back before I knew what a CGM was I would test Arden's blood glucose at odd times just to see where meals and insulin would take her BG. I remember this one day in our Endo's office, Arden's NP asked how her A1c was so good when all of her BG checks where so high, I said, "Oh don't pay attention to those numbers, I'm trying to figure something out". I didn't exactly know what I was doing back then, what I did know is that there was some variable that I was struggling to comprehend, I could feel that it wasn't right to shoot insulin and then just except that the next three hours where okay. Today, thanks to those BG checks at crazy times and the advent of CGM technology, Arden's BGs are far more level and controlled. Tomorrow, thanks to Lilly and our meeting with Kris... I have something new to wonder about, something that may well bring all of this into even better focus. I can't wait to find out what lies beyond that thought.

There's always an answer. Please don't stop looking for it just becasue you've reach the end of your ability to understand. Push yourself, experiment and ask lots of questions until your conversations bring you the answers that you deserve.

Lilly Diabetes invited and paid for me to attend the 2013 summit. Airfare, lodging, food and transportation was all covered by Lilly. I did buy a jammin' lemon pound cake slice for myself at the airport. They never asked me to write about my experience or in any way tried to sway my opinions.

How I See Motherhood

I wanted to share an excerpt from 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal', in honor of Mother's Day. This slice is from Chapter 12 which is titled, "I May Be Growing Ovaries".

I saw a movie back in 1996 called Microcosmos. It’s a documentary about insects. The filmmaker used incredible close-ups and time-lapse photography that gave me as the viewer the feeling that I was standing next to some of the most amazingly varied and fascinating living things on the planet. Slowing down the filming let me examine each step of each frame in a way that left me feeling like I’d experienced the subject’s entire life in just a few moments. As truly awe-inspiring as the film was, my real takeaway leaving the theater was the knowledge that all of this was going on all around me and I never knew it.

It may sound a bit crazy, but that is how I see motherhood. Each day is full of wondrous and critically important moments. Endless decisions are made and carried out by our moms in homes all around the world. Each step holds the hope of survival, growth, and prosperity, but as important and plentiful as these women and their work are, it goes unseen by most. When someone does finally pay attention, it’s unlikely that the viewer will take the time to learn about the complexities of these seemingly simple tasks. You can watch bees collect nectar and dismiss it as just bugs eating, or you can spend a few minutes understanding how their repetitive act literally makes the world spin.

This chapter is dedicated to the women I know who asked me if my book was going to help their husbands to understand what they do all day. I hope this is what you had in mind, girls. I don’t just think that you are the center of everything, I know that you are. I may not be a woman, but I try very hard to be even half the mom that I know my gorgeous wife would have been if our lives would have gone a different way. I hope every day that I am making Kelly proud, while properly representing all that you ladies do, feel, and love so diligently when no one is looking. 

Goodreads Book GiveAway

My publisher (Thank you Spry Publishing!) is giving away autographed copies of 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal' to ten lucky Goodreads members... Looking forward to signing your book... Good luck!

-Scott

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal

by Scott Benner

Giveaway ends June 07, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Update on Friday, November 15, 2013 at 3:38PM by Scott Benner

Giveaway ended June 7, 2013. We may do another in December... Stay tuned. In the meantime Life Is Short is available everywhere books are sold and on all ebook readers.

Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal has won a Mom's Choice Award!

This is quite an honor!

More details next week.