Most of my days end up in sheer exhaustion, as juggling a dynamo of a toddler, a day job, and my writing career, leave me drained.

And most of the days all of these can be rather thankless. For example, my sales have been pretty meh this month, especially compared with last December’s. And I recently had a particularly bad collaboration with an abusive client. All of which has left me exhausted.

So, when I had a few welcome surprises lately, I decided to share with you in the hopes that they will cheer you up when it looks like nothing’s moving in the right direction!

We Love Kleidi

Stinky Hippo | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books

Mary Natalie arranged her stuffed toys around the grey Hippodonkey and put pegs on all their noses. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Hippodonkey had beans last night and he’s been farting a lot,” she explained…

First of all, Mary Natalie, who was even naughtier than usual when she came home from school yesterday. She threw tantrum after tantrum and left both her mother and me utterly exhausted. Figuring out something must have happened at school, I kept prodding her to find out what.

Here is our dialogue:

“Kleidi keeps hugging me,” she complained.

In case you’re wondering, Kleidi is a lovely boy from preschool. “Don’t you want him to?”

“Yes.”

“Are you worried he might prefer Athena or Anelia [her frenemies] instead of you?”

“No!” She waved at me dismissively. “He’s mine.”

Poor Kleidi, I wonder if you even know it, I thought, but said nothing. “Then what’s the problem?”

“But I love you, Daddy!”

I had to chuckle at this. As it turns out, not only does my 3year-old have her first crush but she was highly stressed because she was afraid of hurting my feelings when I found out! I gave her a bear hug and explained that it’s perfectly okay to love other boys as well and that I like Kleidi–which I genuinely do. In fact, he’s one of the loveliest boys I’ve ever seen, so now I know she has good taste in boys. “So, we love Kleidi,” I ended up saying. “But if you don’t want him to hug you, just tell him so. And if he insists, tell your teacher.”

“We love Kleidi,” she agreed and ran to bed–where, for the first time in ages, she wanted to cuddle with me instead of her mom, and asked me to read her a story.

Valiant Smile Gets Recognized

Valiant Smile (Greek) | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksThe second surprise had to do with Valiant Smile, the third book in my children’s books series, Mystery Smiles, and the first one to be published in Greece by Patakis Publishers. A friend notified me that she had seen it listed among a selection of the “12 best books for Christmas for kids and teens” published by the newspaper Proto Thema.

Also, it was listed among Greece’s best books you can buy this Christmas as selected by the prestigious Talk Magazine!

I can’t wait for Dimitris to finish the English version so that I can finally make it available on Amazon!

Istomedia Wins Award

You know me as an author, but my day job is that of web designer and Internet marketer. So, it was a wonderful surprise to find out a couple of days ago that Bark awarded my company, Istomedia, with its prestigious Certificate of Excellence award!

Istomedia Ltd

This is a great honor and I promise to do my best to keep up the good work!