Ever cry while folding old baby clothes into a give-away box? Summon your last ounce of grace while being bitten and kicked and scratched by a three-year-old? Admitted a new respect for your mom and the things you put her through?

Welcome to the wild world of motherhood, defined by author Lori-Anne Poirier as “the most blessed, hilarious, frustrating, daunting and rewarding of adventures.”

After a decade of interviewing rock stars, television personalities, politicians and criminal investigators as a freelance journalist, Lori-Anne switched gears after having kids, to write about the smaller moments in her own life.

From trying to keep snap-up pyjamas on a child who has just discovered how to unsnap things, to discovering beauty in a beat-up tabletop, Lori-Anne shares some of her most cherished anecdotes and prized epiphanies as a mom.

She also relates how her eyes were re-opened to a lot of living that had been discarded on her journey through adulthood: Simple pleasures, such as puddle jumping or the wisdom of Winnie-the-Pooh. Looking at the world as her son and daughter must see it has brought back some of the excitement and adventure that she and – she argues – the majority of adults have lost to the pressures of work, bills and expectations to “act your age.”

It’s a book about laughter, forgiveness, sacrifice, living deliberately and just getting through the day.

It’s life, it’s love. It’s Tales of The Mother Load.