Operating Instructions: A Book Review

My first mom's class from Amma Maternity is all getting together at my house in couple of weeks for a book club.  I am, of course, thrilled by the prospect of being in a book club.  The two most important people in my life have been flaunting their book clubs in my face for years, and now it is my turn.  And I'm not going to be shy in talking about how much fun I have a *my* book club.  Okay.  I said it.

Since we are an all mom book club, we wanted to start out with a good mom book.  The group chose Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott.  About 5 pages into the book, I knew that it was going to become a standard gift for all new moms that I know.  By the end of the book, I was looking around my house in a paranoid way, making sure that Anne wasn't sitting next to me journaling about my experiences as parent.

Her portrayal of the emotions that come with being a new parent mirrors my emotions over the past six months.  I am not really a "quoter" -- you know, the girls who had quotes all over their dorm room and now are the women who have them in their cubicles and offices.  Quotes like "Happiness is being married to your best friend."  God, just typing that I threw up in my mouth.  Anyway, this book had so many touching passages that I feel like I have to share some of them.  And no, I am not going to frame any of them in my cube.

"[Sam] is finally beginning to enjoy his stay here, and not only that but he may want to be one of us when he grows up.  There's definitely a sense that he's the new man in the company and is now ready to start working his way up the ladder."  

I have noticed the same thing about Jude.  He looks around from his perch in the middle of the living room floor, surveying all of the action around him.  The cats.  The dog.  The mommies.  And you can read his little face, and it says "I could be convinced to stick around with these guys."

"Lots of other babies his age have been crawling for months.  Their moms say 'Oh, Joshua was one of those babies who couldn't wait to crawl,' and their tone suggest that this is some positive reflection on his moral character.  I always want to say, Yeah, but your kid's a spoiled little no-neck monster and your husband is a total dork.  But hey -- congratulations on the crawling."


This is a mantra that I repeat on a regular basis.  Since Jude is a little, well, delayed in his rolling over (although we did have a back-to-front incident today - no one is getting their hopes up), I have had so many people talk about how their baby rolled over at 12 weeks.  Like that is an admission ticket to Harvard.  And even if it is, it could also be an admission ticket to Nerdtown, and Jude and I are working to avoid that place.


"My life has become so mundane.  The biggest thrill left for me, the only time I really feel I'm courting danger, is when I'm washing my hair and I step directly under the shower spray and let the water begin to stream down my forehead, but I wait a split second to close my eyes so that the shampoo gets dangerously close to blinding me."


I have to try this.  It is what my life as a mother has been missing.

And my favorite...

"I tell my students about that line of Doctorow's, that when you're writing a novel, it's like driving in a tulle fog; you can only see about as far as the headlights, but that's enough; it's as far as you have to see.  And I tell them that this probably applies to real life, too.  But right now I feel like I'm just sitting in the car with Sam, not really going anywhere, just getting to know each other, both of us looking out through the window at what passes by, and then at each other again."