So what to write about on the day after a day of such intrigue? As is so often the case, Robbi has solved the problem without even meaning to.

For the last two nights, just as I’ve been drifting off to the far pastures, Robbi has asked me for drawing prompts. For the last two mornings, I’ve awakened to images in my inbox.

Two nights ago, I gave her “banana head.” (I may have been trying to insult her; I can’t remember now.)

Last night, I mumbled, “false teeth.”

Amazing what a girl can do with an iPad, stylus, and five minutes at the end of a long day.

For a long time, we weren’t really sure why we didn’t want to open it. But then we started to look back and realized that the box contained a story seven-and-a-half years in the making. Which is to say, there was a lot more than a book in that box. Before we’d feel ready to open it, we needed to spend some time reflecting on all that led up to it.

The story goes back to the fall of 2006, when Robbi and I decided to quit our jobs in Baltimore, sell our house, and move to our barn in Chestertown. We had no real plan other than to do what we had always wanted to do, which was to make books together. We thought we’d do it until we ran out of money and had to return to the real world.

A few months later, in December of 2006, we made our version of Ten Thousand Stories. It looked like this. We loved the book. It was just what we wanted to be making. And that was the entire point of our enterprise: to make what we wanted to make on our own terms. We were convinced that this state of creative bliss wouldn’t last forever, so we were determined to make the most of it.

So we kept on making books together, collaborating at every step.

When the first year ended, we had ten books under our belts and hadn’t run out of money, so we kept on going, sending ten books a year to our subscribers.

Eventually, we started taking our show on the road, going to book shows so that we could get our stuff in front of other people.

One weekend (I think it was the spring of 2009), we hauled all our books up to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival in New York City,

That afternoon, a guy from Disney came to our booth.

We did everything we could to get his attention.

But as it turns out, it wasn’t Robbi’s hot bod that caught his eye. He picked up a copy of our mix-and-match book After Everafter. A few years later, he took it to a production meeting at the publishing company Little Brown.

Little Brown’s children’s book imprint LB Kids was doing a mix-and-match book in the Super Hero Squad series and wanted us to write and illustrate it.

And so we did.

Suddenly, we were getting paid to do the thing we loved the most. Almost. The words were my words and the illustrations were Robbi’s illustrations (except for the characters themselves, which were mined from a bank of Disney-approved clip art), but the characters weren’t our characters. It wasn’t our universe. It was exciting to be published, but we didn’t get the same wild thrills of creative freedom we got from making our Idiots’Books titles.

There was a moment when “the box” containing our copy of The Super Hero Squad Flips Out arrived from LB Kids.

But it wasn’t quite the same. We opened that box right away. Because there wasn’t quite as much inside.

But that’s only part of the story.

One day, my friend and former band mate Brian Francis Slattery asked me to write a book review for his journal, the New Haven Review.

And so I did.

The review caught the eye of a poet/critic/talent scout named Tess.

She told her boss about us.

Her boss became our agent.

A few years ago, our agent met with an editor from Chronicle and showed her our big stack of Idiots’Books.

The editor’s name was Bridget. Several of the titles piqued her interest, and one title in particular captured her affections.

That title was Ten Thousand Stories. An offer was made. Some papers were signed.

We have a hunch that if we had tried really hard to get Chronicle to publish Ten Thousand Stories back in the winter of 2006, it probably wouldn’t have happened. Chronicle is, after all the greatest publisher in the world, and we just lowly wiener dogs yipping at its mighty heels.

Instead we just made a lot of books that we wanted to make and said yes when opportunities presented themselves. Out of that, this amazing opportunity presented itself.

And that opportunity was to have a publisher that we respect more than any other publish work that we love, that we believe in, that represents Robbi and me at our best. It’s the perfect collision of commerce and art. I guess it remains to be seen if the book is successful in a commercial sense. But in our hearts, it is a perfect example of what we set out to do at the beginning of this long and indeterminate journey.

And so we are back to the box. By Tuesday afternoon, finally convinced that we had reflected long enough, we decided to open it.

The box was very well taped.

But I was undaunted.

In the box were two copies of our book. Lovingly protected in bubble wrap.

Seeing the cover for the first time…I must admit, I got a little emotional.

But emotion gave way to wonder.

It was absolutely beautiful.

And why not? Everything Chronicle makes is exquisite. That’s what makes them Chronicle.

We checked the fine print to make sure that this was, in fact, a Chronicle book, but there it was, the humble proof in black and white.

Eventually, I let Robbi touch the book, too, and together, we admired it.

From the spine…

…to the cover…

…to the dedication…

…to the bio page.

There it was at long last, our Chronicle book.

We were thrilled.

We were rhapsodic.

We were a little turned on.

None of this would be possible without the vision and hard work of a handful of people who believed in us: Thanks to Bridget Watson Payne, our fearless editor (check out her lovely blog; behold her mighty tweets). Thanks to Kathy, our agent who went out on a limb to represent two weirdo nobodies. Thanks to Bridget’s assistant Caitlin, who put up with our nonsense and shepherded us through the treacherous waters, and thanks to Kristen, the amazing designer who came up with that gorgeous cover.

And thanks to Seiko and Bob, who opened their barn to us, making space in their busy lives for the big footprint we inhabit. Thanks for their love and support. It was Seiko who helped us bind the first 20 copies of Ten Thousand Stories back in December of 2006 hours before our first-ever public appearance at Bookplate. She was so proud of us that night. As I know she is at this very moment.

I told you there was a lot in that box. The amazing weight of it is still swirling around in this room.

So then:

As some of you know, Robbi and Alden have both gotten serious lately about Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial arts form practiced by Robbi’s Dancing With the Stars partner Mark Pagano. Saturday was the big end of year picnic and promotion ceremony. We were to eat some hot dogs in the sunshine and Robbi was to be presented with her yellow belt in recognition of her promotion to the rank of 9th gup.

When we got to the picnic, the Tang Soo Do-ers were practicing their forms.

August was stunned.

All his life, has known is mother as a loving, gentle giver of life.

Suddenly she was a nimble ninja who could break your wrist with a casual glance. The contrast was so jarring that he needed a change of scenery. So we wandered down to the water to give him some time to process.

In no time, he found a fishing pole.

And proceeded to use it.

When Alden finished practicing her forms, she came down to join us by the water.

Eventually the aforementioned hot dogs happened.

As well as some badminton. In our actual game play, the BAD was emphasized, and so I will limit the photographic illustration of this sad stretch of the day’s events to this shot of Robbi posing alluringly with her racquet. Which matches her shirt, if you hadn’t noticed.

After hot dogs, Alden conned some older kids in to giving her a tour of the swimming pool while pretending to be a queen.

Good work, if you can get it.

Later that night, to quench a sudden craving, August helped me shop for seltzer.

This is a recap of our week. I didn’t say that all of it was exciting.

On Sunday, we got up early and headed to the Baltimore Zoo. The occasion was Iris’s birthday party. Iris is now five. This, too, is startling. The last five years of Iris’s life have passed about as quickly as this week has passed, which is to say, without my even noticing.

August spent the entire party climbing up this yellow ladder. By Robbi’s count, he scaled it 31 times.

Kato spent the entire time consulting his zoo map. His goal was to see the polar bears, and yet, all he could find was the playground. It was galling. He grew increasingly agitated.

But then the cake was served, and the agitation evaporated. Cake is amazing in this way.

After the cake, we were off. To explore the zoo in style. Alden and the birthday girl set off in search of adventure.

The first stop was the tram that took us to the far end of the zoo.

Before we got to the polar bears, we took a detour into the petting zoo.

The petting was a big hit, especially with August, who almost never meets anyone shorter than he is.

He begged us to let him bring the baby goat home.

But when we said no, he contented himself with whispering sweet nothings into the ear of any goat that would listen. Apparently, goats have very low standards, so August made a lot of new friends.

Like cake, goats are awesome.

As are polar bears.

The zoo has a train. It takes you on a short loop through the trees.

Kato loves the train. I almost wished that I had made him choose between eating cake and riding on the train. It would have been fun to see the internal conflict play itself out.

As it was, he got to ride on the train and eat his cake, too.

It was that kind of day.

As I was saying, trains are great. But, apparently, I make an even better conveyance.

But perhaps not quite as good as a lion? the kids loved sitting on the lion.

I said, the kids loved sitting on the lion.

Much better.

Here’s my advice. If at first the claim you want to make is refuted by the photograph, simply take more photographs. Eventually (as with the infinite monkey theorem, which states that if you give a monkey sufficient time, he will eventually write Hamlet), the exact photo you desire will come along.

It just might take a while.

In a really good dream, a “wildest fantasies” sort of dream, the label on the box might bear the name of Chronicle Books, the world’s finest publisher of beautiful printed matter.

Seeing that label on the box, my wife and collaborative partner Robbi (because this is a dream, I get to imagine a really hot wife and collaborative partner) pauses wistfully, beholding the box with a pleasant mixture of gratification and wonder.

As if to say, there is something amazing in this box. This box contains a dream.

I, of course, can empathize. In this dream, I am humbled and amazed. Holding the box, it’s all I can do to keep from crying like a kid. The box is so light in spite of all that it contains, years of work and hope, late nights and mountains of doubt.

The box is a problem. It is a box, but also it’s a symbol, an emblem of something that Robbi and I have held in our minds as the highest mountain. We’ve been dreaming of opening this box for so long. The dream of this box has been pushing us forward.

Once we open the box, we can never open it again.

And so it sits on the work table, unopened and unspoiled. Three days and counting.

We will open the box, and probably someday soon. After all, it’s just a box, and what’s inside is just a book.

But for now, we like how it looks on the table.