It’s a special edition of Show & Tell, and our class is celebrating our first year of revealing ourselves and learning about others.

How? By sharing one memorable post, of course.

Mine is about a friendship, which began with a bridge. (Yes, that is my most memorable S&T post of the last year.)

Last summer, Cassandra (a fairly new-to-me-blogger) posted a photo of a bridge and a story about her visit to it as an angry, defeated infertile. She ran a contest to guess where in the world this bridge was.

I won the contest, because I, too, had an infertility story about the same bridge!

Cassandra mailed me one of her hand-thrown pieces of pottery for my prize (currently holding lilacs that Tessa picked yesterday).

A few months later, and under secret conditions, Cassandra responded to my plight of chewed up woobies by having four of them sent to me.

And just last month, I finally got to meet Cassandra when she visited my town and spent an afternoon with my children and me. Again, she came bearing gifts, including another exquisite piece of her pottery.

So for my favorite S&T post of the last year, I select the one that kept on giving, the one that brought me a new, witty, intelligent, compassionate and generous friend — who is now pregnant with twins — woohoo!

Please click over to read the last 2 paragraphs (under the image) in her post. Warms my heart.

For more Show & Tell favorites, visit Mel’s Show & Tell.
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When Tessa and Reed were still in car seats, there’s a song we’d sing while cruising around that made us all laugh. When *I* was a kid, my sisters and I would sing the same song in 3-part harmony. It’s a happy song for happy times and happy memories.

The same song is appropriate for the first birthday of of Show & Tell, and to honor our favorite candy-maker and headmistress, Lollipop Goldstein.

(No, this is not me. It WOULD be me if I had a better voice and an iota of video producing and editing skills. I like this version a lot. Do you?)

More Showing & Telling goes on at Mel‘s (aka Lollipop’s) every weekend. Check out what the cool kids have going on.

We bought our used Honda CR-V during Tessa’s first year. It had about as many miles on it as she did, so I figure they’re even. The CR-V replaced a 1985 sedan that was not made for scooping an infant car seat in and out of it. My Honda has been such a welcome addition to our garage.

I tend to think of my CR-V, then, as an odometer for my life with Tessa. This week we went from this (lower counter):

…to this.*

So I figure Tessa and I just rolled over 100,000 miles together, too. All during the same week when we got The Call about her 8 years ago. (Coincidentally, this is also the week we got The Call about Reed 6 years ago. Ahhh, Spring. More reasons to love it.)

That breaks down to about 12,500 miles per year. Or about 35 a day.

Really?? Some days seems like more; some days seems like less.

I am due for a tune-up. Soon I am taking a business trip to a place with a beach, so I’ll have a chance to, uh, change my muffler (is that taking the metaphor too far? doesn’t it sound slightly naughty?). I’m looking for a guest blogger or two. If you have a post you’d like to submit, email it to me this week.

Back to my main topic with a question for those of you in Canada and other metric system countries: would you have called this post “Kilometerstone”?

* Thanks to Roger for taking these photos on the skiing side of the Eisenhower Tunnel when he borrowed my CR-V. Stopping to take pictures of the odometer was part of the deal. Which he dutifully fulfilled. Under pain of death.

To see what others are Showing & Telling head over to Mel‘s.

Belly on up to the voting booth for the 2009 Limerick Chick Contest! (Poll is on the right sidebar ===============>.)

Because of the large number of entries we’ll have a primary until 10 pm (MDT) Sunday night, after which I’ll be able to announce the top 3 vote-getters.

On Monday we’ll vote again for the best of the best. On St Patrick’s Day, I’ll announce the winning limerick.

So please vote. Now and Monday.

I am so glad I don’t have to make the decision, because each of the entries below is absolutely limericious.

Perfect Moment Monday will be postponed this week, so don’t have one. I mean, if you DO have one, come back a week LATER to tell us about it.

Entries:

1. Martha
There once was a blogger named Lori
Very deserving of honor and glory
She writes of Open Adoption you see
And how it can be
Much is learned from her family’s story

Infertility Rocks is so full of sass
Her posts are funny and sometimes crass
She knows how to smile
And after awhile
You think we can beat infertility’s a$$!

3. Kalei
I know there are those that can’t have one
A baby I mean, in the tumm
But as Miss Lori will write
you can fight for that right
and a baby adopted might find you

4. Lollipop 1
One day there will be a baby smiling from the back seat
She’ll be ecstatic when at last they do meet
She reworked the whole blogroll
Made sure people were where they should go
And that is why Cassandra is so neat.

5. Lollipop 2
You may know her as the longest running Clicker
She’s taken care of you; that’s why I picked her
In this whole world wide web
She tells of All Things Deb
Her commitment to this community never flickers

6. Lollipop 3
From UTERUS to the LFCA
She has helped so many people along the way
She just drove down to see Cali
For her Internet shower party
She’s Jen who makes you want to say yay!

I once was scared of the gyno
Now I’ll drop my pants for a rhino
When bad time are worse
There’s blogs like the mrsch
Or instead I can just be a whino

8. Luna 1
Oh how I love to read Lori
You know she can tell a great story
Never know what’s in store
She always leaves you wanting more
BestLight is usually right and never boring!

9. Luna 2
The best haiku promised a prize
To capture with words laughs or cries
It didn’t have to rhyme
They say it’s coming in time
If I ever see it, I’ll be surprised.

10. Terra
There was a youngish mom of the blog
often she typed and wrote in a fog
exploiting her kin
much to their chagrin
for even the dead dog made the blog

11. Dramalish
There once was a wannabe momma,
Who liked to teach English and Drama,
She got up the duff,
But still wrote lots of stuff,
‘Bout her Daily Dramalish-ious Trauma.

12. Kymberli 1
Here is a limerick for all of us-
together we laugh, cry, and fuss.
With a double-fisted zinger
we give infertility the finger,
you sonofabi+ch, you make us all cuss.

13. Kymberli 2
As UTERUS’ first beneficiary,
she was blessed with a healthy, safe pregnancy.
Lover of plaid and blue Grover,
rocks at header makeovers,
Calliope has Snork in her occupancy.

14. Kristin
There once was a community called ALI
filled with heartbreak, hope and , maybes
We use needles and take drugs
Say “F*CK INFERTILITY” and give hugs
All for the hope of a baby.

For more Show & Tell (yes, I’m cheating by piggy-backing on Show & Tell, but *I* sure as hell don’t want to be the one to decide which is best so you all have to) head over to Mel‘s