New book coming soon

Being a nanny for my grandchildren has produced many deja vu moments from my parenting days more than three decades ago. Particularly when my grandson does something – good or bad, precious or obnoxious – I see his dad all over again.

I sometimes even go so far as to call him “Nate” instead of “Eli,” getting mixed up on who I’m actually dealing with.

My granddaughter doesn’t look as much like her dad as her brother, but she still does things that remind me of when Nate was a toddler learning to express himself.

The vast majority of the time spent with these two adorable grandchildren I find absolutely delightful. They make me giggle, beam and feel like life just couldn’t get any better.

They’re cute as can be, smart, funny and quite exhilarating.

But in the challenging times, and there are always a few with young children, I find myself full of uncertainties and fears. “How should I handle this?” “What’s the best way to address her behavior?” “Will I thwart his development if I do the wrong thing?” On and on and on it goes.

Then I remember being there before. What did I do then?

Maybe I could just check, I thought. I had already revisited all my photo albums from Nate’s childhood, amazed at how much his son looks exactly like he did as a child.

But in addition to those memories from looking at photos – I had written proof of how things were. For most of my son’s growing up years, I wrote a personal weekly column for the two newspapers I worked with in Macon, Georgia, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Since so much of my time and attention was on providing a good life for my son, he naturally became the topic of a big chunk of the columns I wrote.

As I was re-reading and remembering, it occurred to me that others – from young parents to grandparents like me – might get some value from the lessons I learned. Many would likely recognize themselves or their sisters or best friends and for sure, appreciate some of the humorous moments.

I pulled together some of the columns, mostly ones addressing universal and evergreen parenting issues, and put them in a book. I’ve seen the proofs and it’s really exciting.

The actual publication is coming soon, definitely by or before Thanksgiving 2017. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know. Check this page for updates.