The one in which I GOT PUBLISHED ON THE HUFFINGTON POST!!!!!! (Part 2)

If you haven't yet read part 1, you should read it here.

As I was waiting to see if my post was actually going to be published on HuffPost, (and by "waiting," I obviously mean "alternating between staring obsessively at my phone and staring obsessively at my laptop to see if I'd gotten an email saying that it had been posted") I happened to notice an article from a local news station about a pregnant meteorologist who had been getting nasty comments and letters about her appearance from viewers. And I thought, "well that's just mean! Why do people feel like it's... AUGH! A NEW EMAIL!! MY POST MUST BE UP!! Oh, shoot, nevermind... appropriate to make rude comments about pregnant women's bodies??"

When I got my HuffPost Blogger log in information, the guidelines said "Post if and when you want; you are the boss," so I wrote a post about how it would be nice if people would maybe stop criticizing the bodies of pregnant women who they don't even know, and I uploaded that one to HuffPost, too. (Which meant that then I was freaking out about whether two posts would be published, instead of just one. So that was maybe not so bright.)

Then finally, I got the email. My first post was live!! (You can read it here. It's pretty much identical to how I submitted it to them, except for that they edited out the phrase "bodily fluids." Which was probably a smart move, but which also cracked me up for some reason.) I literally jumped up and down screaming in my kitchen, which my three-year-old thought was awesome, so he kept asking me to do it again. (He and I spent a good fifteen minutes jumping up and down and screaming; me because I was excited to be on HuffPost, him because he likes screaming.) And then I posted it on Facebook, and screamed some more. It got 18 comments (17 of which were from people I knew) and was visible towards the bottom of the main HuffPost Parents page, so I was pretty pleased.

Then two days later, they published the piece I wrote about critiquing pregnant women's bodies. And started promoting it at the bottom of their other pieces. And it got 30-something comments in like 30 minutes. And I FREAKED OUT. Then they posted it on the HuffPost Parents Facebook page. (It ultimately got over 4,500 likes.) And I freaked out some more! (Although, side note, I meant for that picture to be a stock photo of a pregnant woman's belly, not my face. But technology is hard.)

Then half an hour after they posted my post on their Facebook page, they posted a piece by Nigel Barker.

Source: HuffPost Parents Facebook Page

And I was like, OH MY GOSH, NIGEL BARKER AND I WRITE FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST TOGETHER!! (Except, disclaimer, Nigel Barker has no idea who I am. But Nigel, if you're reading this, and you want to collaborate on a piece on, say, the art of the diaper change, give me a call. Loved you on America's Next Top Model. I used to watch it while eating cheese dip from Sam's Club, so as you can see, our lives are equally glamorous.)

I've published three posts on HuffPost, and the excitement still hasn't gone away. Some of you have asked how much new traffic I've gotten for my blog: so far, I've gotten 45 new likes for my blog's page and a spike in traffic each time I post (the biggest spike came after my pregnancy post.) I've also gotten one whole mean Tweet! The guy told me I should've "learned to use logic and reasoning before becoming a writer," which really made no sense in context of any of my posts, but I was like, "Sweet! Some guy called me a writer!!" Plus now when people ask me my hobbies, I can be like, "Oh, you know, I write for The Huffington Post. No big deal." Then they'll be like "Oh, cool! How much do they pay you?" And I'll be like, "Um, nothing." And then they'll be like "Can I have some of your cheese dip?" And that's when I'll know I've arrived.

If you want to follow me on HuffPost to be notified any time I post something new there, go here. And if you're not already following me on Facebook, you should do it here. Sometimes I say funny things.