'You better not let your mom hear you saying that.' Translation: I'm too tired to discipline you for a small infraction like a cuss word, especially since you probably learned that word from me. Just don't try it in front of your mother or we'll both be sorry!" Cathy Hamilton's handy reference decodes Dad's idiomatic sayings that are often evoked to cajole, shame, motive, inspire, threaten, or bewilder his offspring.

Packed with embarrassing anecdotes, true stories, jokes, sayings - all the wonderful and cringeworthy things dads do and say that make us all sigh and groan.

A gift-appropriate story for kids features a long-suffering boy's eye-rolling observations of his father's bombastic and often corny sense of humor, which is comprised of groan-out-loud puns and wisecracking rejoinders.

Rule #1 in the parenting handbook: "Keep 'em off guard." Then along comes Cathy Hamilton (a forty-something mother of two, by the way) who blows the whole cover for fatherdom. Okay, Dad will still have a trick or two up his sleeve, but Dadgummit goes a long way toward giving the "other side" some boisterously entertaining explanations about parental messages.Consider the author's take on this dadism:"Let's nip this in the bud right now." Dads love nipping things in the bud. Some dads could go around bud-nipping all day. Among the most nippable . . . cussing, budding young romance, and a daughter's dreams of becoming a Vegas showgirl.Dadgummit knows just where Dad is coming from . . . and fatherhood will never be the same.

Draws on medical case histories, scientific findings, and personal research by the author to separate myth from fact and debunk a vast array of parental edicts.

Rule #1 in the parenting handbook: "Keep 'em off guard." Then along comes Cathy Hamilton (a forty-something mother of two, by the way) who blows the whole cover for fatherdom. Okay, Dad will still have a trick or two up his sleeve, but Dadgummit goes a long way toward giving the "other side" some boisterously entertaining explanations about parental messages. Consider the author's take on this dadism: "Let's nip this in the bud right now." Dads love nipping things in the bud. Some dads could go around bud-nipping all day. Among the most nippable . . . cussing, budding young romance, and a daughter's dreams of becoming a Vegas showgirl. Dadgummit knows just where Dad is coming from . . . and fatherhood will never be the same.