The Naked Mom – by Brooke Burke–Celebrity Mom & Co-Host of Dancing With The Stars (Book Review/Giveaway) (Now Closed)

 

Brooke Burke, Celebrity Mom & Co-Host of Dancing With The Stars has just released her first book, The Naked mom – A Modern Mom’s Fearless Revelations, Savvy Advice and Soulful Reflections.

Although I’m not a huge fan of Dancing with the Stars, I know who Brooke Burke is and remembered her from her days as the host of Wild On. When I started reading her bio I was amazed to learn that she has 4 children! 4… and yes, a body like that. Crazy, right? On top of being a mother of 4 she’s also co-CEO and a popular blogger at ModernMom.com, the founder of an online retail store babooshbaby.com which features post-pregnancy belly wraps, a “mommy” correspondent on the daytime talk show The Doctors, and a go-to celebrity mom expert on Twitter, where she has more than 1.7 million followers. Talk about a busy mom!

After realizing just how busy Brooke is how could you not want to hear what she has to say? I mean really. I find myself overwhelmed with 2 kids, a tiny house, and no job. How does she manage it all?

Disconnecting

Well it turns out she doesn’t. She has her moments just like us. And that’s what, at least to me made her all the more relatable while reading about her life. For instance, it’s literally taken me weeks to read her book. 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there. Unfortunately these days I just don’t have time to read. To myself that is. I do read to the kids! Pretty much all my free alone time is spent online hanging out on Facebook, Twitter, my blog, gmail, CNN.  Brooke talks about how difficult it is to manage her own time and how it’s not as easy to practice what you preach (to your kids) when it comes to “disconnecting” from all the technology that now surrounds us.

Twitter Crazy

With so much going on at one point she actually found herself having her house phone shut off just so she could get a little bit of peace and quiet. How her husband sneakily suggested she drive because she’d literally turn their car into a make-shift office, and how they’ve now agreed to squash all technology while driving together. She makes a great case against letting technology control your life and then at the end turns around and says she “can’t wait to tweet about it”, which to me is hilarious because if you’re big into twitter or even facebook you’ll totally understand.

Bad Mommy Moments

On another more serious note, her book is not just filled with all the jokes that go along with mommyhood, it’s filled with tears too. I literally cried when she relayed a story about her worst mommy moment, leaving her sleeping child in a car while she enjoyed coffee with her friends. When she realized what she had done an angry mob had already surrounded her car, berating her, leaving her to drive off hastily, all the while sobbing and so shaken up by the incident that to this day just to think about it still rattles her. We’ve all had those types of moments where we could kick ourselves and question our ability to be good mothers but most of us don’t share it with the world like Brooke has.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

I am incredibly thankful for women like Brooke who are in the public eye but let us delve into their world for a little while. As women most of us at one point in our life, even if it was when we were 10 years old, had aspirations to be a movie star, a talk show host, an astronaut! A lot of the times in the end all we wind up being are moms. We can turn resentful and look to the stars with jealousy in our eyes not realizing that their lives are even more hectic than ours. That women like Brooke have had their own fair share of hard times, but that they persevered and continued to strive for what they wanted. Women like her have a drive, coupled with ambition and motivation to do what they want in life.. and so should we all.

You Have To Go For It

In the end we can forget that we all have one thing in common. We’re mothers. It’s so easy to forget about who we were or who we wanted to be before we became a Mother. You can’t give up hope and get bogged down in the nonsense of every day life. If you want that degree, go for it, if you want to take photography classes at age 50, go for it!  Live your life to the fullest and be happy. For you and your family.  I really believe that’s one of the many messages Brooke was trying to convey when writing her book.

I am very happy to have taken the time to myself to read this book and really recommend it to all of you. If you need inspiration she’s it ladies. She’s incredibly easy to identify with. She’s open, honest and candid and she even goes as far as to include some pictures of herself before she fully blossomed into the beautiful woman she is today. Not something many of us would be willing to do! At least not me.

With my days filled with poopy diapers, spit up, and screaming kids I sometimes forget about myself. That I need to take care of me too. I may be a mom now but I still have dreams that I want to achieve one day. Even if that means starting out with not sitting around in pajamas all day!  Thank you Brooke for giving me a little inspiration and helping me remember who *I* am, but thank you especially for letting me laugh and cry right along side you.

Where To Buy

You can find The Naked Mom: A Modern Mom’s Fearless Revelations,Savvy Advice, and Soulful Reflections by Brooke Burke on Amazon.com where it retails for $14.41 and is eligible for free super saver shipping (free shipping on orders over $25) and of course in all major book stores.

(Now Closed)

Congrats to Jason N. and Thank you to all who entered!

Prize: 1 reader will win a Hardcover copy of The Naked Mom by Brooke Burke

To Enter:  Please complete the required task. If the required task is not completed then none of your entries will count.  After that you have several other ways of getting extra entries.  Make sure that for each one you do you leave a separate comment. Each comment counts as one entry. Please leave your correct email addy.

Required: Just tell me who you’d like to win this book for.

2 Extra Entries

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5 Extra Entries

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1 Extra Entry Per Day

* Follow me on Twitter @detroitmommy then copy this and tweet it:

RT @detroitmommy Win a copy of Brooke Burke’s new book “The Naked Mom” from first-time-mommy Ends 3/27  http://bit.ly/dU7T1i

Leave me a comment with a link to your tweet.  You can come back each day and retweet for 1 extra entry per day. Just make sure to leave a comment each day you do it! (You can also use the green RT button at the top of this post)

(Don’t know how to show me you RT’d? Just place your mouse directly under your tweet where it says “1 minute ago from web” and click to get the URL of your status update. Copy and Paste.)

Good Luck!

Giveaway is open to residents of the US, 18 yrs of age or older. Any posts not including the requested information will be deleted. This giveaway ends: Sunday, March 27, 2011 12am EST. Winner will be contacted immediately and announced Monday, March 28, 2011. In the event the winner does not respond to email within 48 hours I will choose another random winner. I will be using random.org to do this.