I was an English major in college. I love to read. I love books. It's just a world that I feel comfortable in. So naturally, when I was pregnant, and now as a mom, it's always nice to find books that are well-written, relevant to my life, and fun to read. It's also not always easy to find books that fit all of those criteria. It's actually kind of impossible. But my mom gave me a book by
Anne Lamott when I was pregnant called
Operating Instructions and it quickly became one of my favorite books of all time. I've read other Anne
Lamott books, and I really love her for a lot of different reasons. Maybe in part because she is so honest, sometimes to a painful degree. She is irreverent, but also
religious, but in a way that is appealing and not alienating, even if you don't share her beliefs. Really, she's a hilarious writer, and clearly a wonderful mother.
Operating Instructions is about the first year of her son's life. She is raising him alone in the book, and listening to her speak about the lovely moments and the difficult ones makes me be proud to be a mom. It's definitely the only place where I read about another mom feeling those moments where you are teetering on the edge of insanity after an extended newborn crying jag and you actually scare yourself and have to leave the room where your baby is screaming. It comforted me to hear another woman admit that. No where in any of the manuals about child-rearing did I see such honesty and comfort. And it's a book that I keep in the side-pocket of our glider, pulling it out at random times and re-reading passages. I especially love to read about her son, Sam, when he is at the corresponding ages with Roxanne.
So anyways, I just wanted to share that. If you are looking for a good mom book, I would recommend this one. It changed me in some good ways.
