Just got back from New Orleans, where us parenting-magazine types gathered for the endless rubber-chicken buffet that is our national convention. Three days of seminars (and skipping out of seminars to go driving around the Ninth Ward - but that's another post!) culminated in another one of those surreal and humbling evenings where I become the public face of the excellence that is ParentMap. 
Yup, nineteen times, I got up from my table and trundled to the podium, stuffing my glee and attempting to look surprised and modest. Nineteen times! "Oh, GOSH! Another one?" and then I sauntered back to my seat, where I was keeping up a steady drunken texting flurry to our publisher, Alayne and our art director, Emily.
Nineteen. Just unheard of. Unless you're us, last year, with our silly record-setting 24.
So, this is my love letter to those two dozen or so moms and dads I work with who make that Cinderella evening possible every year: Thank you for pouring your heart and soul and boundless talents and energy into this singular and exceptional publication.
Those of us with a byline and a ticket to the rubber-chicken buffet get all the glory, but we know why we're standing there with a fistful of shiny certificates. I raise my glass to you all.
