books

So-called baby/child "experts" be damned — dealing with a newborn is like discovering that the pilot of your two-seater helicopter wasn't kidding when he clutched his chest and slumped over the controls. Except you haven't slept in going on 72 hours, your episiotomy stitches are itching like all hell, your milk has "come in" and your breasts have assumed the size and consistency of a football fit for Colossal Man (and are dribbling in sympathetic tandem with your baby's soul-piercing wails). Not that Little Miss Mighty Lungs wants to know about it — she's holding out for the rubber nipple that "spoiled her to the breast" in the hospital, when you hadn't yet begun "lactating" (translation: your milk was "out" drinking bathtub gin somewhere), but the poor little mite required hydrating after enduring a long and difficult birth, and the doc opted for formula over IV.

That's the new-mother journal I'd have written, had I remained conscious long enough to write during the fleeting moments my baby actually slept. TV host (Discovery Channel's Make Room for Baby) and journalist Lu Hanessian did keep a journal after her son was born, and it's now a book called Let the Baby Drive. An honest, well-written account, it lets readers in on a seldom-shared secret: Growing into motherhood is scary, hard and overwhelming. It forces you to relinquish control, trust your instincts and let the current take you. In other words, let the baby drive, mama. "Writing about the first year of my son's life was like writing about the chaos of crossing a frontier," says the Cherry Hill-based Hanessian. "I figured out that mothering my child meant figuring out who he is, not who the experts claim he should be." Meet the author at Barnes & Noble, where she'll be signing copies of her book, and visit www.letthebabydrive.com to hear snippets from Hanessian's newly released CD. A one-woman cyclone, Hanessian writes her own music and lyrics.

Lu Hanessian reads Tue., Aug. 23, 7:30 p.m., Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut St., 215-665-0716.