Last year, I didn’t enter Looky, Daddy’s Haiku contest, but the finalists made me laugh hard enough to snarf coffee.

This year, I got inspired to join the party — and my entry was selected by an actual published poet, Claudia Carlson, bribed by Looky, Daddy to be the judge, as one of the 10 finalists.

So, wouldja go vote for me?

Here’s my 2 stanza haiku:

Approaching Two
Do you want some cheese?
No! Some apple juice instead?
No! No! No! No! No!

Cheese? Cheese? Cheese? Door? Cheese?
Can you say please? Peez. Tanku.
Mommy! Mommy! Kiss!

And when you’re done, go vote in the 2007 Weblog Awards! Voting ends around 5 pm today (east coast time), if I remember correctly.

Looky, Daddy, is a finalist in the Parenting category. He’s got some stiff competition.

In fact, I love many of the blogs he’s up against, but ever since Looky, Daddy published his hilarious essay on why he he is afraid of his three preschool daughters growing up to be lesbians, he’s had my loyalty. (Yes, you read that right. Trust me. And trust LesbianDad.)

Other blogs I love that are up for awards include Mombian in the LGBT category, Stirrup Queen in the medical category, BlogHer in the community category, Bitch PhD in the Top 250 category, and Konagod in the category I won last year, The Best of the Rest. Vote for them, too! (Those are links to the voting — links to the blogs are below.)

• Mombian
• Stirrup Queen
• BlogHer
• Bitch Ph.D.
• Konagod
  

I don’t spend much time looking at my blog statistics, but once in awhile, I get curious and go digging around.

Here are my favorites from the last ~6 weeks:

aleck johnson lesbian — This is my favorite search EVER! Aleck, is there something you neglected to tell me?

breastfeeding balloons — Stick to breastfeeding babies. The balloons are not so hungry.

fuzzi bunz costco & fuzzi bunz sams — I doubt it. But cheap ones are available online. I recommend Fuzzi Bunz Factory Seconds, or looking for sales here. Yesterday someone told me about a site called Diaper Trader, but I wasn’t able to find it.

usb sim card reader meritline — I don’t speak this language. But welcome to my blog.

lion holding a flag tattoo — I am the last person who could possibly help you. I have a needle phobia.

shai david calculus teacher — I never took calc, and I don’t know Shai David. At least not as far as I know.

scalinis didnt work — for me either!

infected breast implants — YUCK, and I have no helpful information, and I hope NEVER to have any.

is jill pregnant – No. In fact, that’s not the plan any more. But I am in the top 10 search results for that — long after the many announcements of Jill Hennessy’s pregnancy. Congratulations, Jill! Incidentally, she and I share a birthday, although a year apart.

animatronic breasts — I think I know what’s going to appear in my nightmare this evening!

our first threesome — is so unlikely to ever take place that the idea of it being a blog search leading here makes me laugh.

bring me some water — Still or Sparkling? I’m all about the customer service.

how to tie dye tee shirts with mickey mouse — I’m sorry, how did you come to find this blog???

is tuesdays with morrie abstract or concrete — I don’t know, I haven’t read it. I think you should read it and form an opinion. Frankly that would probably be just as fast as looking on the Internet.

my period came and gone and came back. could i be pregnant — Probably not. But if you’re worried, I would take a pregnancy test, not try to figure it out on the Internet.

liza kidnapped — I hope not!

wedding crossdress aunt — My aunts looked lovely at my wedding! And also at my sister’s wedding. None of them was crossdressed.

when on a maturnity leave can i skip my car bill — No. You also have to pay your mortgage or rent, your credit card bills, your phone bill, your student loans (er, maybe that’s not an issue for you) etc.

lord peter wimsey quiz — Do I have one of those? I don’t think so. I’d love to do one. I Heart LPW. But I don’t think I have one, and frankly, google failed me when I looked. The only ones were boring and unblogworthy.

As always, there were MANY many many many variations on “atlanta eggplant scalinis labor restaurant induce,” “tallest baby in the world,” “lesbian pregnancy” and “pumping breastfeeding review.”

Incidentally? While he is tall, Noah isn’t and wasn’t actually the tallest baby in the world. That honor appears to belong to a baby in China. But Noah is the #1 search result on google for that inquiry. The others, as you might imagine, produce a lot of “adult” results before you ever get to my blog.

Immediate Impressions (written Saturday night, posted Tuesday night):

On the train, heading North to Milwaukee, post-BlogHer. I missed my original train, and this one is late, so I’m a little tired and frustrated. I wish I would have zipped out of the conference faster, wish I’d dragged all my crap along, wish I’d realized it was unrealistic to make the 5:08 and stayed for Elizabeth Edwards.

But really, no regrets about the conference. None. I met such interesting people, and connected with people I already knew and liked. I have SO MANY ideas now, for both blogs, and maybe for a 3rd blog.

I have to make some acknowledgments.

First, my Ladyblogs Posse –

• Lizzy: She was as much fun and as nice and supportive as I thought when we met in NYC. I’m so glad we got to hang out more.
• Lizarita: Adorable, funny as hell, nice too.
• Isabel: Charming, made the best present (shrinky dink necklace with tiny rainbow of baby spoons, the LesbianFamily.org logo), ridiculously nice about my having dragged her to a session that wasn’t quite as interesting as I thought promised it would be, and not so very interesting. So pretty!
• Stacy: Quieter than Isabel, but with a similar energy and blonde adorableness.
• Carissa: More personality than you usually find in 3 people! She made the funniest craft gift, glasses to make it look like your eyes are already blacked out.
• Molly: The person I left with the least clear sense of — I think she’d be fabulous in a less frenetic setting.
• Bree: So sad that we didn’t get to connect more in real life. Bree is one of my favorite email/comment exchangers, mostly on the random minutia of life and impending motherhood.

Second, my fellow panelists –

• Joy: Sharp, witty, brave, bold and awesome. I wish we lived in the same city and could hang out and have coffee.
• Valencia: Calm, confident, serene and determined. I am contemplating ways that we might be able to continue to connect and help one another keep expanding out service to our communities.
• Dory: Intelligent, sophisticated, warm, and on top of that, a friend of Anne’s and someone familiar with the very first site I launched! I’m afraid we might have been too domineering during the panel, though.

That’s the end of what I wrote Saturday night.

I don’t have the brainpower to even get into the amazing women I met and spoke with, or saw on panels, or to tell the stories of the weekend. I’m in activity-filled vacation mode here in Milwaukee. Today Noah even got to go be introduced by Grandpa on the floor of the State Assembly.

Ok, I’m no Elizabeth Edwards, Amy Sedaris, or Esther Dyson, but I am thrilled to tell you that I have something in common with them!

All of us will be speakers at BlogHer 2007!

I was just asked to substitute in on the panel, “The Politics of Inclusion & Exclusion in Online Communities,” a topic that you probably already know is near and dear to my heart. The other participants look like very interesting women, and I think we’re going to have a great discussion.

If you’re coming to BlogHer, PLEASE join us!

We have been having a lot of fun here in Casa Booski.

During both of the last two evenings, Noah has worn himself out by dancing and doing laps through our living room, dining room, and hall, both while giggling like a maniac. (Note: linked files are long.)

Tonight, he also asked that we get out the fabric tunnel. (By ask, I mean walked over to where it sits tied into a big round donut, touched it, and looked at me while going “Enh. Ennnh. Ennnnnnhhhhh!” until I figured out what he wanted.)

That was almost funnier than the dancing and running laps.

Sadly, wearing himself out has not precluded waking up at 2 am. Loudly and with great frustration. And staying awake.

* * *

We have also been having some stress. This thyroid thing, while not apparently dangerous, is also no joke.

Jill is on a low dose of thyroid replacement hormone, and they will do another round of bloodwork in a couple of weeks to see if things have improved enough that she can TTC. If not, more drugs, more tests, and more delays. If we are lucky, she will get to start right around her birthday, a not so wonderful reminder that our chances are steadily decreasing.

Aunt Anna is bored out of her gourd on bedrest. The baby has dropped and seems to be contemplating making an appearance. When I’m there June 9 & 10, maybe I’ll be meeting him.

* * *

It appears that my high school class is having a 20th reunion after all! (If you are in my graduating class and read this, I gave Engrid your email address, assuming I have it. I also gave her all the teacher email addresses I could find, mostly pilfered from Sandra’s emails.)

And it is the weekend after BlogHer, which turns out to be convenient — I’d been planning to go to Milwaukee for the weekend before BlogHer, but now I think I’ll go the weekend after.

* * *

Dammit. Not convenient after all. We just consulted a calendar, including our best estimate of when Jill will be ovulating, assuming we get all the thyroid stuff sorted out. Looks like the week we would be in Milwaukee.

That bites.

Pretty much that means that either we wait to TTC, or Jill doesn’t come to my reunion with me. And both of us deal with a high energy toddler alone in an airport.

Probable plan du jour:

1) I go to BlogHer by myself

2) Jill and Noah go to Milwaukee, where I meet them after Saturday’s BlogHer sessions are over (skipping Saturday dinner & parties).

3) Jill leaves Milwaukee maybe on Wednesday; earlier if she surges early. We ask around to see if any of our doctor friends there can check to see how many follicles she has and how they look — if they don’t look promising, no leaving early.

4) Noah hangs out with Grandma while I go to reunion. This especially means PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE GOING. And those of you who are a year (or two) ahead or behind us, wouldn’t that week be a good time to visit Milwaukee?
* * *

Sudden thought: Hey Lizzie, will your work send you to BlogHer? Where we could hang out with Lizzy? Mebbe yall could do a similar first part of our logistical crazy dance and then we can have a week long playdate in Milwaukee while our friends with jobs there are at work.

If you left a comment in the last 2 weeks, and never saw it appear, I’m sorry. I think it is gone forever.

I just deleted not quite 3,000 comments awaiting moderation. I did not have the brainpower to see if there were any real comments buried among the comment spam attempts to sell me (and you) porn, drugs, porn, ringtones, porn, currency trading software, porn, penis enlargement products, porn, and by the way, did I mention porn? (Heh. Someone has hacked an insecure server at harvard.edu and has apparently put up porn. MIT, I’m looking at you.)

Sorry. If you re-comment, I’ll try to moderate more quickly so you actually get posted.

UPDATE: Please send calming, blood-pressure lowering vibes to my sister. Or prayers, if you are a pray-er. She is back in the hospital today (Monday) and preeclampsia is looking like the problem.

We are waiting to hear if she gets to go home and be on a reduced schedule this week, then modified bed rest until week 37, then induced (best case scenario), admitted and induced pretty much now (worst case scenario) or somewhere in between.

Original Post: I survived my second trip away from Noah. Fortunately, it was shorter than the first one — I left early Saturday morning, and returned VERY late Sunday night. Considerably later than I was supposed to return, thanks to more than 1.5 hours of flight delays.

But it was a great trip. I got to spend some time with my Mom, and also with my sister and her husband. I got to eat Indian food without making Jill suffer — she will go with me, but she doesn’t like it.

Aunt Anna’s shower was fun — the location was cute, although the service left a lot to be desired. But she got a good haul, and we know that little baby Form Derived from a Cube will not be naked, hungry, or stranded, at least not due to lack of resources.

What on earth kind of nickname is Form Derived from a Cube, you ask? Only the best pre-birth baby nickname EVER. Uncle Jason is also an artist and art dealer, and his artistic mentor was the late Sol LeWitt. When LeWitt passed away last month, they discussed the possibility of honoring him in the name of their baby, and while no information is forthcoming about the name of the actual baby, the nickname is sticking.

Also, Jason’s current gallery show lent itself to an awesome baby shower game, a word search of items and ideas related to the baby and his family. Of the 30 words, no one was able to find more than 23. The puzzlemaker at discovery.com is awesomely hard!!!

I’ll be back in NYC in a couple of weeks, for the Katie Orenstein Op-Ed class.

Does anyone want to get together, babies and kiddies included, for a Saturday afternoon post-nap picnic in Central Park? June 9. The class, which I’m taking with my friend Brandi, is all day June 10.

I leave it to Lizzy and the other New Yorkers to come up with a more specific location accessible to the gigantically pregnant and to the toddling. (And of course, if other Northeasterners, and others, feel like visiting New York that weekend, that would make it even more delicious.)

Leave a comment or drop me an email at liza (at) jill - liza dot us if you want to be included!