Baby's first comic show

Yesterday Daddy, AwesomeCloud and I, plus one friend, went to Portland ME to sell comic books at the comic book show. The Portland show is lovely. The ocean view is fantastic - you'll have a hard time finding a comic show with a better view no matter where you look. (Hawaii, maybe.)

The convention center is right on the water, and it's all windows, and for two years running, our table was on the ocean side of the room. Sweet!

There was also a balcony, and the door to the balcony was right behind our table. It was perfect. When Cloud got restless, we could turn around, take him out that door, and let him run around on the balcony with just the seagulls for company.

The only downside was that, every time we opened the door, all the minicomics on our table got blown to the floor.

Having our friend with us was an enormous help. She wasn't specifically assigned to childcare, but she played with Cloud and took him for walks, which gave Daddy and me more time to talk to customers. She also minded the table by herself for a few stretches of time. See, my husband and I kept bumping into our indy comic friends, and catching up with them, and we probably spent much longer chatting with the other vendors than we should have.

But it all worked out. Everyone had fun, and best of all, we sold lots of books. $62 worth. Mostly $1 minicomics.

That's a LOT of minicomics.

We only ran out of one issue, though - Unpopular Species #1. The species might be unpopular, but the book is very popular.

And most importantly... AwesomeCloud was awesome.

That's a relief for us. Because he's going to grow up attending these shows, and if he had trouble tolerating the crowds and the noise and the long hours, we'd have to back off for a bit until he was a little older. Fortunately, he's cool with being at these shows, so we'll keep at it.

I'm not saying we're taking him to Origins anytime soon... or even SPACE or SPX. Sorry. I hope our friends at those shows don't mind waiting a few more years. In those cases, though, it's not the show itself keeping us away. It's the commute.

My husband took a ton of pictures, but none of them have been formatted yet, and I'm too tired and lazy. It's a beautiful day and naptime is only so long.

This morning, AwesomeCloud and I transplanted one hydrangea. I gave him a tiny, tiny trowel from Mimi's old pouch of odd gardening tools, so he wouldn't do much damage while he was helping. He sprayed us both with small amounts of dirt, but the hydrangea is successfully relocated.

I'd like to do the second one while he's sleeping. Or I could do laundry and stuff.... eh....