Weekend update

 

Feb 10 @ Little City Books in Hoboken

I'll be reading at Little City Books in Hoboken, NJ on Sunday, February 10 at 11 a.m.

Details here.

I'm planning to read Three Grumpy Trucks, Ten Tiny Toes, and Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep!

#165

Ten Tiny Toes got paired in the search algorithm with two best-selling books, resulting in a peak sales ranking this week of #165. (Remind me to send a thank you to Jimmy Fallon.)

I was refreshing my laptop every hour and shouting to Jo, "It's up to 684!" "It's up to 315!"

For a brief, shining evening we outsold every Harry Potter and Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. Jo and I are ready for the royalties to roll in; we have already picked out our beachfront house in Connecticut.

Hopefully we actually made enough to pay for our Happy Hour sushi dinner at Haru last night.

That's good enough for me. Look at my beautiful wife.

Okay. We've had our fun for the week.

Back to actual writing.

Book update

I got an email from the editor of Naughty Ninja Takes a Bath that the artwork is almost done and the book is scheduled for publication in October.

Three Grumpy Trucks had a great week on Amazon just before Christmas, climbing all the way to #4,665 on Amazon. That was the highest any book of mine had ever gone.

Then, this week Ten Tiny Toes the board book unexpectedly took off, hitting #3,904 on Thursday, #1,863 yesterday, and a high of #654 today. (It's #886 as I write this.)

That ranked it ahead of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat.

Okay. We'll see how that translates to actual sales next week, but it made for a pleasant Sunday evening.

On the writing front, I have one manuscript in circulation, and I just submitted a revision on another. I'd love to kick off 2019 with a sale.

Dear Samuel

I miss you already.

It was so wonderful having you home from college for Christmas. 

Your brown eyes are gentle like a deer, deep like a still lake, peaceful like autumn leaves, nurturing like the earth. They suit you. I am a bit startled to see them in this photo, as they have been covered by Virtual Reality goggles for the past several weeks. But I knew they were there.

Thank you for accepting the changes in our lives over the past year with grace and optimism. Thank you for your empathy and compassion and love. 

Thank you for charting the path of your own life, however tenuous and uncertain it still seems. God forbid you should have everything planned out when you're twenty. 

I look at you in your empty dorm room and I see one small person with a big heart and an empty slate waiting to be painted. Literally. That room needs to be painted. 

Thank you for being you...and whoever you become. There is no one else I would ever want you to be. I'm here when you need me.

Love,

Dad

Babysitter workout

• Crawl around on the floor on all fours roaring like a dinosaur (10 sets of 10 reps)
• Crouch behind a wall, then spring up suddenly (15 sets of 10 reps)
• Run in short bursts to surprise and grab 30-pound humans as they try to run away (20 sets of 10 reps)
• Lift 30-pound humans into the air (50 sets of 10 reps)
• Short rest during application of "Paw Patrol"TM Band-AidTM on forehead boo-boo (5 minutes)
• Walk around museum for 90 minutes (2 miles)
• Feel sore that night and next day...debate with wife whether more kids at your age is a smart idea
• Step on scale and be a pound lighter, tell your wife that you have the body of a 30-year-old and are ready for triplets

Post-workout cool-down: Tell your wife how young she looks, how much you love her, and that you are taking her out for a romantic dinner, just the two of you.

Train ride with Samuel

Samuel goes back to college at the end of the week, so we decided to go on an adventure today.

We wanted to go to the model train exhibit at Bronx Botanical Garden but the tickets were sold out, so we settled for the free holiday model train exhibit at Grand Central.

It was a fun 10-minute diversion, but not enough to make a full adventure. So we looked at the Metro North train schedule monitor and saw that there was a train to Stamford leaving in 4 minutes.

We said, "Let's go!"

It was already 3:45 and we hadn't had lunch--or notified Ethan or Jo that we were going on a train trip--so we looked for places we might get off prior to Stamford.

We settled on Mamaroneck.

There was a Smashburger a block from the train station.

Thumbs up for Mamaroneck, then the 5 PM train back to Manhattan.