I used to stand on the stoop every evening at the same time: bouncing up and down with my infant son in the carrier, hoping that the sights and smells of the outdoors would calm him – or me. This stage felt neverending.

One day my neighbour said to me in passing: "so I guess things are easier? I haven’t seen you on the doorstep this week."

Then it struck me, things were easier. He had stopped having screaming at the witching hour and I hadn’t even noticed!

What was it I pondered: had I learned his language, had I figured out the key to parenting my baby? I patted myself on the back, I was obviously such a fantastic mother! Dr. Sears would award me his highest praise: I was a highly responsive parent of a high needs baby. Phew.

“Penis, poop, poopy poop. Mom, all those words start with Puh sound.”

“Yes, they do dear.”

“And poopy pants, pee, poops,”

“Yes.”

“But not vagina.”

“No, that’s a Vah sound.”

Life with a preschooler is full of potty talk. It starts with bum and moves on. And the more they do it, the more we laugh so they keep doing it. And then you have a conversation like that in line at Starbucks and the older lady in front of you gives you the evil eye.

I am a Twitter addict. Twitter is full of funny people saying funny things in 140 characters, but Shit My Dad Says is one of the few that elicits actual laugh out loud responses.

That said, I probably won’t watch the show that derives from the Twitter account and book because the genius is the lack of context to each saying. The CBS show, starring William Shatner, is currently titled &%’* My Dad Says instead of other options like Stuff My Dad Says, or Bleep My Dad Says. It is airing on Thursday nights on primetime aimed at adults. The show is garnering a lot of media because the Parent Television Council is upset, asking advertisers to boycott the show because of it’s use of an expletive in the title, saying parents don't like swearing.

My oldest son is wandering around the house agitated. We are waiting for the TV repair man and I have banned his computer use. He needs a break from the screens so instead, he wanders around making me crazy. “I’m borrrrred,” he says at least 100 times.

I am a complete failure when it comes to forcing the kids to turn off their screens. My eldest son is an addict; he plays video games on the Playstation or computer whenever he can; or at least for as long as I let him. After I get exasperated with him he will then lie on the couch and read for a while. And then return to the screen as soon as the ban lifted.

There I sat in Tokyo, four months pregnant with a huge platter of sushi in front of me. What could I do? I was there as a corporate wife and had to be polite, but raw fish when pregnant? The wife of our host looked at me and smiled, “What is wrong? You don’t like fish?”

Being pregnant nowadays is like walking through a minefield of gastronomic disasters. I’m just thankful that I was pregnant 10 years ago when the list was limited to wine and sushi. Now on top of the liquor ban you can’t touch runny cheese, smoked meat, any kind of fish, sprouts and the list keeps growing and growing.

I would never be able to stick to such a regime.

There aren’t too many opportunities to sit in a crowded room and weep openly, not from grief but from beauty mixed with sadness, with elation mixed with fear and with feelings of gratitude to be amongst your own. But I had many opportunities this weekend at BlogHer, a conference of 2,400 women (and about 10  men) who blog.

It’s an incredible number, and probably just the tip of the iceberg of the amount of blogs that are out there. Blogs that reveal, teach, expose and advocate; blogs are starting to change the world and BlogHer.com is at the forefront of the movement. Every session and keynote you could hear the murmurings: you have power, use it wisely.

But don’t listen to me. Take the time and read the best of the best, the top 15 posts chosen by the BlogHer network to be the Voices of the Year. These posts cover a gamut of experiences, emotions and viewpoints. Some of them are breathtaking in their beauty and their honesty, others are funny but all of them have one thing in common: the power to transform.

The other day a friend was telling me how she trained her dog to stop barking. She put a collar on him that shocked him every time he barked loudly. Not a painful shock, just kind of like a walking on the carpet in the middle of winter kind of shock.

And now every time she walks towards him holding the collar the dog's head and ears droop and his tail hits the floor.

If anyone had told me that mealtime was going to be the most difficult part of parenting I would have laughed at them. I love food and I love to cook. How can that be a problem? But fast forward three years and I was saddled with what seemed like the pickiest child on the planet. His meal choices kept getting more and more narrow until we were looking at three sad, bland items to choose from everyday.

So what did I do? I commiserated, I cried, I yelled and then I got together with a chef-friend and wrote a book that would let parents know they aren’t alone. Whining and Dining:Mealtime Survival for Picky Eaters and Families Who Love Them is the result of our struggles trying to get our kids out of the dreaded white food diet.

Since I wrote the book I have spoken to countless parent groups, served thousands more meals and been disappointed and heartened a million times over. We have a lot of tips, anecdotes and delicious recipes in the book all in the hopes that the whole family will eat better together. I have a lot of  ideas (maybe you heard some on Martha Stewart radio this morning?) on how to get picky eaters to be less picky but the truth is that to get kids out of a rut, the whole family has to do these three things:

Today, I am heading out to New York for the annual BlogHer conference. By the time you read this, I will have decided which shoes to pack, which dresses don’t make me look chubby and kissed my kids and boarded the plane.

BlogHer is the hub of women’s blogging on the Internet, and the conference is the largest exchange of ideas, fashion tips and “squeees” every year with over 2,400 attendees. To say that I am stressed about the trip is an understatement. I do not worry about leaving my kids, my husband is more than capable and I dare say, may even enjoy solo parenting for a few days.

I just worry. This is my first conference by myself. I know, seems incredible doesn’t it? So what do I worry about? The usual stuff: will I make a good impression? Will I connect with people? Will my outfits truly reflect who I am?

I remember my best friend in a moment of going-back-to-work  panic said, “What if she loves the nanny more than me?”

I reassured her that there is no way that any child loves her caregiver more than her mother. Kids know their parents and it is healthy and wonderful for them to have strong connections with many people in their world.

What I didn’t tell her is that there is a good chance that her child will like her nanny more than her mother.