Motherhood Uncensored

The Best of BlogHer 2007 Awards

Most Boring Bloggers Who Were Most Unlikely to Almost Get Thrown Out of the W Hotel Because They Were So Boring: The MBT crew as clearly evidenced to your left.

Most Cheap Economical Swag: The autographed tampons from The Sarcastic Journalist. Tampax should send her oodles of money.

Cutest Couple: Drew and Juniper, canoodling at the cocktail party.

Best Art Piece Not at Chicago Museum of Art: Her Bad Mother: A Still Life

Best Swag for Eliciting the Longest and Most Unncessary Stories About Vasectomies: My lollipop condoms.

Best Swag for People Accidentally Thinking Was Candy and Then Realizing That it Wasn't: My lollipop condoms.

The Swag Most Likely to Cause an Uproar Before Being Stuffed into a Trashcan: The BlogHer sponsor Butterball's potholders.

Hottest Mommy Blogger: Karl from Second Hand Tryptophan.

Shameless Whore That Had to Be in Every Freaking Picture: SueBob's red stapler. Damn that bitchy office essential.

Most Informative BlogHer Session: The taxi ride in which I learned that uncircumcised penises are easier to jack off. Who knew?

Most Uncomfortable Moment: Every single time someone complained loudly about PayPerPost, BlogHer Conference Sponsor.

Most Annoying Part of BlogHer: The 157 PR people chasing you down because "you must be a mommy blogger since you have a baby." Except this one, of course.

Most Succulent Breasts: A tie between BlogHer Sponsor Butterball's display turkey and the slew  of breastfeeding bloghers in attendance. Oh it's real.

Blogger Who You Thought Was Not At All Like You Thought She Was But Was So Freaking Hot You Could Lick her: Ruth Dynamite.

Best Snub By a Company Who Clearly Does Not Know Their Mom Bloggers Very Well: Real Simple hassling Lindsay and Yvonne at their private party and taking back their swag. Can you say immediate subscription drop?

Blogger Who Used to Blog But Doesn't Anymore But Needs to Start Another One Like Nowly: Kristin, formerly of TallnLucky. C'mon girl. We're all waiting to add to our feed readers.

Most Unlikely Blogger to Share a Sex Story that Involved Dildos: Dana from The Dana Files. Even conservatives like hot crazy sex apparently.

The Blogger Who is Clearly the Opposite of Her Blog Name: SJ from I-Asshole. Um, so not.

Best Emergency Baby Toy from a Blogger: Lawyer Mama's maxi pad with wings. Thanks for helping a sister out.

Disclaimer: These pictures are not mine and I'm not laying claim to them. I found them on Flickr and was too lazy tired to write down the folks who took them. If you indeed took these pictures and would like credit, email me and I will gladly put your link up.

When You Have a Cute Baby, No One Cares What You Look Like

For all the time I spent worrying about clothes, shoes, and mouth zits, I should have realized that all anyone would be looking at was my sweet boy. This boy had so many surrogate girlfriends aunties this past weekend, all of whom graciously used him to build their biceps and get their baby fix, that I think he might need to start a blog. And he may in fact be responsible for a huge baby boom in the next nine months.

Here is Drew with his harem:

Her Bad Mother snuggling with Drew under her scarf.

Tracey Clark canoodling with Drew over lattes and books.

Mothergoosemouse offering Drew some of her Pregnant Lady Wine water.

My son loves Brits. Must be that sexy accent.

If you've got pics of yourself with my baby (or you've seen them floating around on the interwebs), send them to me! I WANT THEM!

Tales from Airport Security: Now With Updates

Airport Security Person running the x-ray machine: "Excuse me maam, is that um, a toy in your bag?"

Frazzled Blogger with baby and fourteen bags: "Why yes it is. And don't you try to take it."

If only I could get home to use it. I'm here in Atlanta, waving at my new house (yes, we are official homeowners), and trying to get back to Philly sometime before I actually move here in less than two weeks. Part of me thinks it might just be easier to stay.

**I'm finally home after finally getting on a flight to Atlantic City and making the drive back courtesy of my mother. And yes, he did poop finally at O'Hare this morning. I left them a nice little gift (whole outfit included) in the trash can at gate L-5.

And Then She Goes Away

Prior to leaving for BlogHer, I felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety. It had nothing to do with meeting bloggers of new, old, and Canadia, but more about leaving my daughter with my in-laws.

You do know my in-laws, right?

I realized at around 11pm the night before I left that I had never talked to her about what to do if she gets lost. I looked at my husband and said "I need to go talk to her about what happens when she gets lost! What if your mother loses her on the boardwalk? What if she turns away and Quinlan runs off?"

It's true that I trust myself, my husband, and a rabid gorilla more than I trust my mother-in-law with my daughter. It doesn't help that she didn't feed her lunch when she took her to see the parade for 5 hours. Or that she thinks that candy is a decent snack.

But leaving her alone with them, without my husband to mediate (or really, crack the whip) nearly sent me over the edge.

With my upcoming move to Atlanta, buying a house, planning for a trip alone with an infant, and leaving my daughter, I've certainly built up quite a bundle of stress. And as I sat in my room last night, realizing that it was best that I stay here another day instead of brave a slew of full flights and hours in an airport, I cried.

A lot.

I hate to admit that I miss my daughter. It's one of those cliche' things that I hate to say. I get a good four days away (even though I still have my son with me) and I should be enjoying the lap of luxury, eating bon bons, and meeting bloggers.

And I am. But I'm also missing that sweet voice and darling face that greets me cheerfully on most days and the mean, grouchy face that greets me not so cheerfully on others. And because I'm exhausted and stressed, my mind wanders to a time when she's older and away.

Will my heart yearn for her still? Will I wish for the weekends when she'll come home and let me do her laundry while we talk about her college classes? Will I miss her sweet face just the same even when her eyes are tired from her own kids?

I can't help but think of those moments.

So close, and yet so far away.

Because Flying is So Last Year

The benefits of free! awesome! free! flying are really only benefits when you don't have to sit around all freaking day and watch hordes of people that are not you get on the flight that you should be getting on.

Add a terribly sweet but still infant boy and it can lead to public crying fits.

From me.

It was looking up when I easily boarded my 10am flight to Cinncinati and enjoyed a good hour of the Philadelphia Airport runway while we all waited anxiously for Air Force One to land. I have to admit that being able to blame the President for yet another national tragedy (being late to BlogHer) didn't bother me all that much. Plus, my sweet beautiful son slept right through that so he could be wide, awake, and fully able to grab the braids of the lovely woman next to me for the whole entire plane ride.

But who am I to complain? I got to perfect peeing on an airplane bathroom with my son in a mei tai. I got to do a quick shot of water before my son dumped it all over me and the nice lady next to me who spent half the flight trying to fend my son off of her. And I got to stand for the latter half of the flight in the Flight Attendant Galley while I watched them count and recount water bottles with the utmost care and then bark at me for standing in their way.

It was all looking fairly good until I learned that thunderstorms and "air traffic" were causing massive delays and cancellations in Chicago. In non-revenue passenger speak that meant I was going to be shit out of luck.

So I waited. I ate two bites of a McDonald's salad. I checked my email. I bathed my son in anti-bacterial wash. And then realized that the next flight was cancelled and all the rest of them were either cancelled or terribly overbooked.

And don't get me wrong. I've always wanted to spend a night in Cincinnati. But to then do the same thing all over again with the same folks who should have been on flights today was just enough motivation for me to decide to rent a car.

And drive to Chicago.

I'm not exactly a huge fan of five-hour drives, particularly with infants screaming in the back seat, but I figured this was my best option for getting to BlogHer on Thursday night.

It just so turns out that I had briefly met this mother and daughter pair who were also trying to get to Chicago and decided to offer them a ride. They were clearly not axe murderers, and I figured we could split the cost.

Okay, I figured they could entertain my son.

Mommy, there is truly nothing to see in Indiana. Why didn't we drive through Vegas?

But in either case, I walked up to them and offered them a ride, making sure to reiterate that I, in fact, was not an axe murderer myself. (Always a good prerequisite when offering random strangers a 5-hour ride in your rental car).

As it turns out, they were United employees also attempting to do pass travel and so we decided to team up, make the drive, and get our asses to Chicago in a timely fashion.

Timely being five and a half hours in a Ford Focus crammed with three adult people and a teething baby.

I can almost smell the pizza.

But I made it. I am here, in fact still here until tomorrow thanks to overcrowded flights, anxiously awaiting my son's first Chicago poopy diaper (methinks deep dish and rice cereal is a bit binding).

And I'm having a terrible time.