Yesterday, Parents Magazine announced the nominees for their 2013 Blog Awards. The good news is… I am one of just five bloggers vying for "Most Likely to Make You Laugh"! The bad news is… now I must beg you for votes for the next 16 days.

To cast your vote, just click the green button below:

If this all sounds a little too reminiscent of your two-year-old whining for a cookie, you might want to take a short Mommy Shorts hiatus and come back on February 25th when all begging/pandering/vote-induced tantruming will come to an end.

The other bad news is I am up against some very worthy competitors. Competitors who are not only funny ladies on the internet, but also people I consider my friends. 

Allow me to tell you a story about when Mommy Shorts was just a wee little blog of less than one year…

Back in the fall of 2010, I somehow got nominated for "Best Miscellaneous Blog" from The Bump. I emailed everybody I knew to vote for me (third grade dance teachers, neighborhood dry cleaners, etc.) and the day before the contest was over, I thought I had it in the bag. That night I went out for dinner, bragging about my newfound mommy blogging stardom, and came back to find myself CRUSHED by a couple of ladies who had just discovered they were in the contest. (You can read about my utter disappointment in "Yeah, Well, I Was Never Prom Queen Either".)

Just when I was going to throw in the towel on blogging altogether, those bitches lovely ladies emailed me to say how much they loved wee little Mommy Shorts and asked if I'd like to guest post for them. They were so nice, they put a little button to lead to my blog on their sidebar, which quickly became one of my biggest sources of traffic. That button is still on their blog today and I have tried to return the favor by having their button on my blog as well.

And that was my first experience with the always amazing Rants from Mommyland.

Anna from My Life and Kids is another friend of mine. In fact, I just hooked her up with Oreck (one of my blog sponsors) so she can give away a vacuum for her awesome Messy House competition. And we are currently collaborating on a guest post that she submitted to me last week. I loved it so much, I'm going to turn it into one of my fancy parenting charts. 

And then there's Scary Mommy, a woman who could wag her finger and make the whole contest fall in her lap, due to her huge dedicated following. Jill is mommy blogging's biggest success story— powerful and poised to take over the world. She's even got a best selling book! It would be easy to paint Jill as an evil behometh that must be TAKEN DOWN, except the woman is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. Plus I won't ever hate on another woman's success. I think it's awesome. 

Lastly, there's Crazy Mama Drama.

I don't know her but one look at her facebook page and I already want to steal things from it to post on mine. Like this little gem:

My point is, it's hard to campaign, but it's especially hard to campaign against the bloggers listed above.

But I'm gonna do it anyway because winning "Most Likely to Make You Laugh" and a feature in Parents Magazine seems like a pretty big deal.

So, if you would take a moment to click this link and vote for me, I would really appreciate it. 

Yes, I realize that's the second time I posted the link. Just be thankful I didn't go with my original blog post plan of posting the link over and over and over again inbetween various begging language in BOLD RED ITALICS.

You can vote once a day up through February 24th, so this won't be the last you'll be hearing about this. I'll leave a gentle reminder at the end of each post so it won't get in the way of your regular Mommy Shorts reading.

Something like this:

(hi. it's me begging for votes again. but really small and unintrusive.)

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WHO WON THE STROLLER???

Yes, yes I know. You don't care about the whole awards thing. You just want to get your hands on that freakin' free stroller. Over 1000 people entered the Britax B-Ready stroller giveaway by telling me their favorite Mommy Shorts posts.

Which means, I had my ego stroked several hundred times. People who just posted the same link as the person who commented right above them? I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. People who said the stroller giveaway was their favorite post? I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER TOO. But I still picked the winner with the random number generator and all your entries counted.

The winner of the Britax stroller is….

SARAH!!!!

There was probably more than one Sarah who entered so, it's the Sarah who left a comment about getting her period in the middle of her wedding. (I bet she never thought she'd see that in bold on a blog.)

Sarah's all time favorite Mommy Shorts post, unsurprisingly, is "Worst Wedding Stories Comment Competition". I bet she thinks she could have won that contest too.

I loved seeing what you guys picked as your favorite posts, except that half of you picked 10 Differences Between 1st and 2nd Time Moms, a guest post I did not write. You guys should all be reading a fabulously funny blogger named Toulouse over at Toulouse and Tonic. 

Ten other posts mentioned over and over again were:

Intruder in the House

Lies I Tell My Kid

Porn for Moms of Toddlers

The World's Worst Wedding Date

Grandpa's Baby Death Trap in the Hamptons

12 Things I Wish Someone had Told Me About Potty Training

New Year's Eve Newborn Parent Drinking Game: Second Kid Edition

The Day Harlow was Born

Naming a Baby Would Be Easy Without My Husband

and Mazzy's starring role in…

How to Sell Poop in a Box

Thank you all for indulging me! 

Sarah— congratulations on winning my biggest giveway yet! Please email me at ilana@mommyshorts.com to claim your prize.

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Spreading the Love on Instagram

This month's instagram contest is still going strong with the chance to win a gift set from belle&beanzer. Here are four of my favorite photos so far:

Clockwise from top left: @digamama @hellonatasho @mannlymama @withalittlemoxie. If you are on Instagram, I highly suggest checking out all these wonderful moms/photographers. You can also see my very high tech live feed of the contest entries here. It displays the last 60 entries.

To play, follow both @mommyshorts and @belleandbeanzer on instagram. Then upload LOVE themed photos with the hashtag #instashorts_love and tagging @belleandbeanzer. You can enter one photo per day and international entries are accepted.

Winner will be announced on March 1st.

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HELPING SIENNA

On Wednesday, I posted about a little girl named Sienna with a rare disease called FOP. So many of you went to Sienna's Flower Garden and bought a virtual flower to help fund a clinical trial for a cure. We raised over $1000 and her parents are forever grateful.

But there is still a long way to go.

You can enter the Valentine's Day bouquet giveaway to benefit Sienna up until Sunday night. I am matching the first 100 entries and so far there are only 60. 

And, of course, you can plant a $5 virtual flower in Sienna's Garden whenever you like.

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One more bit of information about the blog awards before I go. It takes place on facebook so if you aren't on facebook you can't vote.

Do you know what this means???

MY MOTHER FINALLY JOINED FACEBOOK!!!!

After ten years of trying to convince Grammy that joining facebook does not mean someone will automatically steal her identity (even though that's probably true), she has now officially created a profile. I'd tell you her name so you can all befriend her but you would scare the living daylights out of her and she would probably never turn on her computer again.

This might be the most heartwarming display of motherly love I have ever experienced.

THANKS, MOM!

I'll see everyone else here next week,

— Mommy Shorts

PS: VOTE!!! I mean… (vote).