Operating Instructions

I was recently going through my bookshelves and came across Ann Lamott's book Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year. I can't recall how I found out about this book but I read it about two years ago, when my son was around six months old and I was licking the battle wounds of first-time parenthood. 

Ann Lamott's book is a frank, candid and funny account of raising a newborn, and how insanely challenging it is. At the point of writing her novel, she was a recovering addict and a single mom, struggling to make sense of this new world with a baby. With a remarkable stable of friends and family, and through sheer faith, she meanders through the first year of her son's life in a way that is deeply heartfelt, inspiring and a true celebration of love.

As a new parent facing the oftentimes crazed days of parenthood, reading Operating Instructions then gave me a good laugh and made me feel like at least I hadn't lost my mind. 

Reading her book, I literally watched her baby Sam grow up through his first year. Considering I first read this book only two years ago, in my mind, baby Sam is well, still a baby. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this baby whom I saw through his first year is now 21 years old! And not only that, he's a dad! He had a baby when he was 19!

Sam's son is now almost 3 years old and funnily enough, just when I decide to re-read Operating Instructions, Ann Lamott has written a new book with her son about her grandson - Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son, which will be released next week on March 20. I found a nice read in Reader's Digest on Ann Lamott's thoughts on being a grandmother, taken from excerpts of her new book. 

Ann and Sam Lamott are giving a talk at City Arts & Lectures in San Francisco on April 10. Too bad I can't go, I think it'll be so interesting to see the dynamics of this mother-son duo in action, to see Sam the baby as a grown man, and how his mom - who cried endless tears over him - is doing today, over two decades later.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to reading her new book.