Craig Melvin Praises ‘Micro-Moments’ in Fatherhood in New Book (Exclusive)

• Craig Melvin has a new children’s book all about the beautiful little moments that come with being a dad
• Melvin and wife Lindsay Czarniak share daughter Sybil, 7, and son Delano, 10
  
• I’m Proud of You is out Tuesday, May 7

Craig Melvin is excited to share his “love letter to fatherhood” with the world.

The Today co-anchor, 43, is celebrating the release of his new children’s book, I’m Proud of You. Speaking with PEOPLE about the picture book, illustrated by Sawyer Cloud, the father of two opened up about why he loves to talk about his life as a dad.

“I wanted to write a love letter to my children. I wanted to write a love letter to fatherhood in general,” Melvin tells PEOPLE. “Dads are sometimes portrayed in a way that’s not always necessarily the most favorable. A lot of times when you think of modern fatherhood, you think of Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin and that’s not who most dads are.”

Melvin notes the book felt like a natural extension of his Today series, “Dads Got This!” where he gets to “showcase dad and fatherhood” in a special way.

“I also have heard that the children get to a point when they’re older where they’re maybe not as compliant or obedient and I wanted to be able to say to my son 10 years from now, ‘Remember when Dad devoted an entire book to you and your little sister? That’s how much I love you,’ ” he teases.

Melvin shares son Delano, 10, and daughter Sybil, 7, with wife Lindsay Czarniak. 

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“I love talking about fatherhood and I love being able to show and introduce ordinary fathers to the world who are doing extraordinary things. It’s something we spent a lot of time doing over the last few years and I’ve become part of this community that I didn’t even know existed until I started talking about it on the air and I started writing about it,” Melvin shares.

“There are a lot of dads who are excited about just being dad, excited about running that shuttle that we all run on the weekends, or coaching their kids basketball teams or soccer teams or they’re part of church groups. It’s a community that doesn’t get a lot of attention, and I think it should.”

It was during one of those exciting but everyday dad moments where Melvin coached his son’s basketball team that he got some insight into how his little boy is growing up.

“There was a moment a few weeks ago that I got a glimpse into who my son is as a person. Because as your children get older, you stop viewing them nearly as his children and you start to see them like little humans who you’re shaping and molding. And every now and then you get a little glimpse that reveals a bit of who they are,” Melvin says.

In his third season of coaching, the kids had yet to win a championship, “much to the kids’ dismay.”

“So I had convinced this group of boys that we would be the David and Goliath in the playoffs. There was this team that had been undefeated all the season and they’d already beaten us once. This is the second round of the rec league playoffs. And I’ve convinced these boys, my team, and my son, I convinced them that they could take this team down,” he explains.

“When we go into the half and it’s tied, we’re supposed to lose by at least 15. The kids are all amped up, and they’ve convinced themselves that they can win. And then lo and behold, long story short and last three minutes of the game, we made a lot of mistakes, we blew it. We ended up losing by about eight.”

Melvin says the kids were “devastated” and “shell-shocked,” and that the same feeling hit him as well as he settled in at home later that night.

“I’m in the kitchen and I just had this moment where I felt so bad. Like, ‘I kind of let these boys down.’ And Delano comes in and he comes over and he said, Dad. ‘It’s okay. There’s next season. We tried our best. You tried yours.'”

In that moment, Melvin became emotional. “It doesn’t take much anymore these days for me to start crying like a baby. So in that moment, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, look at my son. He’s taking care of me. He’s making sure I’m okay.’ I was proud of that. I was proud in that moment.”

Seeing Delano “demonstrating empathy” made Melvin feel good about his and Czarniak’s parenting..

“Every now and then you get a look and you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, I think he’s going to be okay. I think we’re doing okay.'”

For Melvin, it’s a thrill to get to know each of his kids on a deeper level as they come into themselves.

“Delano is into basketball and football. He’s still very much in the dinosaurs. We just got back from the Peabody Museum that reopened up in Connecticut,” the proud dad says. “Sybil is very much into gymnastics and dance and Taylor Swift, hanging out with her friends, and doing her hair.”

The family recently enjoyed a spring break trip together to Florida. We went to Universal and Islands of Adventure. Then we did this water park called Volcano Bay and every morning, it was up for breakfast, straight to a park until it shut down, then back to the hotel — and we did it for four days. It was probably the most fun we’ve had as a family in probably a year.”

Melvin continues, “It was just too much fun, because I had been to a water park in, not an exaggeration, at least 20 years. To go to a water park when your kids are like peak theme park age, and to get to experience it through their eyes, is amazing. You’re getting on the same roller coaster three times, or you’re going down the same water slide three times, and you’re not sure you’re going to be able to keep your lunch down, but you’re still like, ‘Let’s go again.'”

Making these core memories is very important to both Czarniak and Melvin, who says the couple “talk about it frequently.”

“It’s all about making memories. It’s all about depositing memories into this bank that we’ll withdraw from when we’re elderly and decrepit and in our assisted living facility somewhere down south many years from now,” he says. “We’ll talk about, ‘Remember that time we were at the theme park and you almost threw up on the Veloster coaster? Remember that? That was great.'”

Of course, not all parenting moments are easy ones. Melvin admits that sometimes it feels like “you don’t know if you’re doing it right.”

“There’s no handbook. There’s no guide. One day they’re excited about something and then the very next day, they’re sad about the same thing. Even at these young ages, they have complicated friendships and sometimes kids feel left out or they they feel less than. You don’t know the anxieties that they’re dealing with,” he says.

Melvin tries to work through this with his kids by “keeping them talking.”

“One of the things I’ve always tried to do, even when they were much younger than they are now — and this probably goes back to my roots in journalism, but I just try to keep them talking. Sometimes it’s nonsense, don’t get me wrong. But I find that if they’re talking, even if they’re not talking about the issue directly, it helps. Maybe they are indirectly. We talk a lot. We sit down and have dinner together pretty much every day, which is very important to us and has become important to the kids as well. We do a full debrief. So, even when it’s tough, we try to just talk through it, but we also acknowledge that it’s tough.”

Melvin hopes that families enjoying his book together will take time to “take stock of all the small moments.

“We move so fast, especially when you have children. You’re in constant motion. Quite frankly, you have to be. But I hope when people read this book, they stop to take stock of the small moments. Not just the macro moments because we all acknowledge those — the graduations and the weddings and the things that are down the road — but the micro-moments, those little moments that all parents get to experience from time to time.”

He continues, “Whether it’s learning to tie a shoe or making your first shot in a basketball hoop that’s set at 10 feet, or jumping off that high dive for the first time, there are all these little moments that sometimes we let pass us by because we’re all just so busy with life. I hope the book encourages readers to stop and enjoy those a little bit more, to recognize those, to celebrate those, to relish those just a smidge more than we might otherwise.”

Melvin’s looking forward to some early summer plans before heading to Paris to cover the Olympics for Today and NBC Sports.

“In family life, we take a trip every summer down to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to spend time with family. We spend a week with my side of the family. Then my wife’s got family in Florida. We spent some days there as well,” he says.

“We started going Hilton Head several years ago and it’s an annual tradition that everyone really looks forward to. We had to move it up this year because my professional life is going to interfere.”

Melvin and Czarniak will both be covering the Olympics, with the mom of two holding things down on the home front.

“I’m probably getting the easier end of that deal,” he laughs.

“The Olympics are one of the few things left I’d say in television that is very special to be a part of. So many athletes and their grace, the culmination of years of hard work, sacrifices that have been made by moms and dads for, in some cases, 20 years to be there to have a front-row seat to all that greatness. It’s not lost on me,” he shares.

“Especially when you look at the fact that the last two have been hobbled by a global pandemic. Paris is going to be special and just the opening ceremony, the flotilla from every country going down the river Sein and these flotillas that are being ridden by the greatest athletes in the world, and the fireworks as we’re in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower for two plus weeks. It’s gonna be magical.”

I’m Proud of You is now available wherever books are sold.