ON SALE for $0.99
Daddy 3.0:
A Comedy of Errors
A Comedy of Errors
by Rob Armstrong
Rob Armstrong stops by today to share an excerpt from Daddy 3.0: A Comedy of Errors, which is ON SALE for only $0.99 (save $2.00) to 31 March. Don’t miss out!
Description
What a mess. This was not supposed to happen.
This isn’t where Nick Owen thought he would be by this point in life. He used to be a busy web programmer. Now he spends most of his energy trying to stop his three-year-old twins from playing in a dirty sand pit. Nick thinks of himself as Daddy 3.0, a stay-at-home-dad - but he just wasn’t programmed for this.
He must navigate a new world of jungle gyms and playdates while supporting his surgeon wife. He tries his best to be there for the twins, but he can’t stop making a mess of things. He’s just about nearing the end of his rope when the Swing Incident happens. The Swing Incident, spoken of in hushed tones around Nick’s New York City apartment building, has caused the resident queen bee, nicknamed “Supermom,” to declare him an enemy for life. No matter what Nick does to get back into Supermom’s good graces, he fails spectacularly.
Now Nick’s going to have to learn to fight fire with fire and become the best superparent on the block. This hilarious new book by Rob Armstrong chronicles one man’s journey into the world of modern fatherhood - one botched haircut, playground fight, and dirty diaper at a time.
Stay-at-home-dads have a new hero, of sorts.
2017 Independent Author Network Winner - Best Comedy/Satire Novel
Book Video
Excerpt
My attitude about most everything was lousy. This negativity placed me on the wrong side of Supermom. Supermom was everything I was not. She was a walking checklist of desirable qualities: tall, skinny, tan, blond, blue eyed, and attractive. She wore stylish clothes, hailed from a well-heeled family from Connecticut, was married to a rising-star orthopedic surgeon, had graduated from Harvard with a degree in English, was an avid skier and tennis player, was a great cook, and was fluent in French. Her five year plan, after her son and daughter, ages four and three, reached school age, was to start and run a charitable foundation directed toward issues of poverty among women in sub-Saharan Africa. Supermom was the rare person who required no more than four hours of sleep a night, and she was able to utilize the extra hours each day for things such as keeping up correspondence with a seemingly endless list of people who often visited her. She was also the type of stay-at-home parent who would actually do rainy-day activities with her kids, such as painting, clay sculpting, and messy glue projects with feathers and glitter. Before the park incident, I had been on cordial terms with her, placing her in the category of being otherworldly—like a two-dimensional superhero character, ready to take on the world and never requiring a potty break.
Supermom was slow in meeting us that day, but she did unfortunately come. It was late afternoon, and the twins were fighting over a broken sand scoop. I said several times, “Claire. Maude. Can you play nicely and share?” Unfortunately, three-year-olds have short memories. My patience ran thin. Around me were packed kids, moms, and nannies, all of us trapped in a hot asphalt park, not yet ready to return to our cramped Upper East Side apartments. At any point in time, at least one kid could be heard crying or screaming. I had nowhere else to take the girls that didn’t cost money. In Manhattan, circling the block cost five bucks. I had an hour to kill until Liz finished up at the hospital and we could go to our Friday dinner at Mandarin Deli. She had been working a boatload of hours since starting her surgical fellowship at the Hospital for Special Surgery on July 1. It was one of those days—a crab-apple day. The problem was that now most every day was a crab-apple day.
The novelty of being a stay-at-home dad had worn off. I was still looking for work but had few job leads. That day, I had received another rejection call from another second interview. While I was feeling sorry for myself, a grimy boy, maybe four, peed in the sandpit. I looked around for his keeper, but no one seemed to be with the kid. The kid pissed for about five seconds before other people started to notice. The sandpit cleared. “Whose kid is this?” I shouted. “He can’t do that here.”
Ignoring me, he finished his business. Suddenly, a grandmotherly woman pushed through the crowd that had formed and screamed at the kid in a language with many hard consonants. She tugged at his arm and dragged him away. Eventually, kids began to settle back into the sandpit, keeping clear of the area of drainage until it dried. I suggested to my girls that they move on to the jungle gym. I got no argument.
My friend Good Heart had finally gotten to the park with her daughter, Sammie. “Some kid just peed in the sand pit. Do you believe it?”
“Our pediatrician told us to avoid the sand boxes in the parks. Rats play in them at night,” Good Heart said. “Do you let your twins play in the sand?”
“Not now, I’m not.” Good Heart had a gap-tooth smile, which she hoped to rectify as soon as her husband completed his medical fellowship and they could afford cosmetic dental work.
I lost sight of Claire and Maude, as they blended into the swarm of kids on the jungle gym, despite having distinctive curly blond hair. No matter what I was doing in the park, I instinctively looked for the kids every thirty seconds. The thought of not knowing where the kids were scared me. Good Heart understood my need to chase after the kids. I was learning that it was rare to have a full conversation with another adult.
Maude and Claire were hidden beneath the jungle gym, arguing with a slightly older kid over a bike with training wheels. Maude was straddling it, demonstrating her imagined ownership of it. She pulled against the boy’s grip on the handle bar. Her loyal sister yelled, “Our bike.”
I said, “This bike doesn’t belong to you. You have to ask him for a turn if you want to ride it.”
Maude kept pulling on the bike. She was not going to yield. The little boy started to stutter-cry.
“Can they have a turn for a little bit, please?” I asked.
“It mine,” he wailed. Fearing a confrontation with my spunky little Maude, I bent down to speak to the boy, thinking he might be more reasonable than my own child. “My kids are younger than you and don’t understand what it means to share. Can you be a big boy and show them how sharing is done?”
As soon as I said it, I knew I had screwed up. I had failed to heed the prime directive of parenting: do not impose your parenting style on another person’s kid.
“That’s my son’s bike,” a woman yelled. “And don’t you lecture my boy.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t want ‘sorry.’ Just get your kids away.”
“You don’t have to be nasty. Everybody knows that when you bring a toy to the park, you kinda of have to be willing to share it.”
Second mistake. Do not impose your parenting style on other parents.
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
“Hilarious Daddy 3.0 ... story about a computer geek turned stay at home dad ... the best part someone asks towards the end, my husband is the oldest version 1.0, where can I upgrade him cheap … wish the author would have given a link for the upgrade” ~ Mathangi Sri, India
“It did not take me long to read this book simply because, once started, I didn't want to stop reading. The only thing slowing me down were the tears in my eyes from laughing so much. The situational comedy was absolutely hilarious. I kept thinking, ‘I'd love to see this movie.’ The quality of the writing added to the reading pleasure. If this is the first book, I look forward to his second, third and more.” ~ Chuck Hossack, PA
“An appealing comedy delivers many laugh-out-loud moments for the reader who has dealt with a fractious toddler or attempted to cope as an outsider in any type of clique.” ~ Kirkus Reviews
“This book is great I could not put it down.” ~ Liza Bergmann
“You have to love a dad who is just doing his best to keep home and kids under control AND keep his wife happy.” ~ Lisa Borowski
“This was incredibly enjoyable and made me feel a bond with the author. This is a simple, quick read, that is thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining.” ~ Amazon Customer
“You will laugh out loud, as you can absolutely picture the scenes. Anyone who has kids, whether a dad or mom, will relate with these experiences and thoroughly enjoy the ride.” ~ Eric Budin
“This novel, rich with detail and wit, brings the characters to life. I feel like I know Nick Owen and his chaotic children. Armstrong brilliantly chronicles the evolution of a man and his relationships. A must read!” ~ Amazon Customer
About the Author
Rob Armstrong mines comedy from his own life as a stay-at-home dad.
After graduating from the Wharton School of Business, he worked in communication finance, before taking an “early retirement” to look after his two daughters.
Armstrong lives with his wife and daughters in the Greater Philadelphia area. He has served as treasurer of the local PTA and as an elected member of the school board.
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