Our authors’ copies of the first two Cookie Chronicles books just showed up on the porch, but we haven’t opened them yet. When our first copy of our first commercially published book Ten Thousand Stories arrived eight years ago, we waited a week to open the box. Because the box contained a dream come true. Because anticipation is a thing to savor. Because you only get one chance to see your first book for the first time. 

We’ve been through this drill a few times since then, and we won’t wait a week this time around. But I’m going to spend a moment just looking at these boxes, remembering the past three years of work and collaboration and discovery and dreaming ahead to the chapter that begins when the box is open and the books come out to serve their long-intended purpose. 

I can’t wait to open these boxes, but I’m going to do it anyway.