Man, doing promo work on blogs is difficult.  I don't know how people keep up with everything that they do on their blogs, there are all sorts of conditions and rules and formatting and technical stuff and the pressure to post is terrible some days.

I considered quitting the BABIES promotion twice. 

Time is a bit troublesome these past few months.  Work is busy, home is busy, life is busy.  The weather was crappy for awhile.  The things I was up against in the office were crappy for awhile.  Jake was crappy for awhile.  I was crappy for awhile.  When crap piles up, I tend to just lie there under it all.  Crap can be shockingly warm and squishy and comforting.  But it stinks, so you have to come up for air now and then.  So I did.  Begrudgingly.

Then there was the constant inbox assault from one of the companies involved in the promo.  I don't run ads, I don't do promos, I don't do reviews.  But I didn't want to tell them that because I didn't want to impact upon my chances of winning.  So, I politely hit delete and never returned any of the offers.

Then there was the fact that I wasn't too sure what the prize might be, and I didn't want to win anything that I don't think is healthy or wise to use.  I have silly standards, yes.  But there are some things on the market that many sources are giving away for free that I want no part of. 

There were a couple prize packs that included things that I don't use in my home, but aren't going to kill anyone so I figured I could go ahead and give it away without going to hell.  Then there was stuff that wasn't really beneficial to the community at large, so I went ahead and arranged with a few readers who were willing to make a cash donation and a couple who have ties with some companies, just in case I didn't win or I didn't win anything substantial.  I couldn't ask you to click until your finger was numb and then have nothing happen.  So I put together a Plan B.

Then there was the no-feedback thing, so I didn't know how the heck we were doing over here and I sort of lost faith that anything was being tallied at all.  When I missed posting for a week or so I thought my chances were done for and I almost gave up.  But I don't like to give up so I didn't.

Then finally I got the offer to attend the screening in NYC, and the chance to speak with the director so I figured we were doing well. 

By "we" I mean "you".  I'm sort of a half wit, and I never clicked on my own badge.  If I ran for President I would probably vote for the other guy.  Just because it's uncomfortable to me to self-promote.  But it wasn't uncomfortable for me to click, I just never did because I never thought to until it was all done and over with.  That saying about losing your head if it wasn't screwed on so tight?  That's about me.  Between getting the codes and pasting them and coming up with something to post about and wondering how it was going and everything?  I was tired.  (note/dirty secret: I don't proofread what I post here.  It runs along the same lines of reasoning).

I figured I had to be top 200 or so, which is good.  There were 75 Honorary Mention prizes worth about five bucks.  J&J products.  And 19 Fourth Prizes of a car seat.  The car seat would have rocked for one family, the J&J pack I would have probably given to a family who had just entered shelter and maybe bought a few cases of baby stuff to donate to our Emergency Shelter System with the money that Plan B would have pulled in.

Third Prize (and maybe this is a typo because it's worth less than the 4th Prize) was a chance at nine DVD prize packs worth $50.  The last thing I wanted donated to a family is a movie, but I figured these would be great at a shelter or rehab or something where there is communal television time.

The two second prizes were $300 breast pumps, which I would have given to a nursing support group.

First prize was a $350 fancy pants stroller.  I really hoped I didn't win that.  No one I work with can benefit from a $350 stroller.  No one in the world should have a $350 stroller.  I hoped this one would go to a mom who was doing the promo for herself.  I'd rather take $350 and buy 35 umbrella strollers and distribute them accordingly.  If I won First Prize, I would have appealed to the sponsor to maybe do the same.  

The Grand Prize was one years worth of Pampers diapers.  Man alive, I wanted one years worth of Pampers diapers.  I hoped and wished on stars and dandelions for a years worth of Pampers diapers.  That's a lot of diapers, and I've seen lots of babies tied up in old t-shirts and stuff and suffering from terrible rashes caused by a lack of diaper changes because moms and dads couldn't afford a bag of diapers.
Heck, there were times when I had a hard time scraping up the dollars for a bag of diapers.  They aren't cheap.

And guess what?  We won.  The Grand Prize.  Thank you so much guys.  I can't say it enough.  These diapers are going to the mommy-baby programs that serve all of Philadelphia under (insert my workplace here).  Because I'm donating them to my work and allowing the prize to go directly to the office, Pampers is willing to drop the estimated value of the prize ($600) to a lower amount without dropping the heft of the prize so I'm not responsible for the taxes that I would normally be responsible for, so score one for them too.

As pain in the assy some of this was, I'm so incredibly grateful for and proud of you guys and the prize people have been nothing but accommodating because I was on a whirlwind tour of New Jersey this weekend and all of my time stamp requirements on the forms and faxes and mailings and notarized affidavits and releases (seriously) were waived for me for a few days.  I guess they felt bad for me when I said I was in Jersey.  Or something.

So yeah.  We won.  You won.  All I did was put some dumb links up on the internets.  You were the one who put links on your blog and twittered the shit out of my blog and facebooked this crap and everything.  Next time I see you I'll kiss your index finger, I'm sure it's still sore from all the clicking.

And if you want to do more?  Ask me.  Your time is most valuable, but for some of you cash is more easily expended than your minutes.  I understand.  And we can work together to figure out how your dollars can be used well in your community or in mine.  If you live in a utopia and your neighbors don't need any help, I'll be the first to stand up and say mine do and I am really super connected with tons of community organizations, services, and agencies so if you have a personal cause I can link you up to someone who does the dirty work for you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I would love for all of you who are comfortable to leave your name in the comments if you clicked.  Let me know who you are so I can send you some well deserved words of thanks.  Let me know if you linked your blog to mine, or spread the word over Twitter or Facebook or told a friend of a friend of a friend that you knew someone who was doing a little something for this thing.  It all helped.

And I and my boss and my colleagues and the people who will benefit from all this thank you from the bottom of our hearts.