If your baby likes to sleep in the car seat, count your blessings. Better to have a car-sleeper than a car-screamer.

You’ve also got the perfect excuse to patronize nearby drive-through businesses as a destination. My favorites were the slightly-far In-N-Out and the not-very-close drive-through Starbucks.

The real magic can happen when you’re creative and persuasive (and grateful!). You might get normal businesses to serve you curbside if business is slow.

As I was doing our environment a disservice by driving around to keep Holden asleep, I called up a local baby emporium (Baby World on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland) and asked if they could possibly come outside and take my credit card and bring me a size Medium sleep sack and a feeding chair. Score! I’ve had luck with this technique with regular retail stores like kids clothes and non-drive-through restaurants. Most businesses are happy to take your money outside if you’re polite and explain the situation. Finally, cash makes it easier.

If your baby is a car napper, keep the phone number of such helpful businesses in your phone.

As part of a partnership with Philips AVENT, I attended a super amazing event in Los Angeles last month. The Biggest Baby Shower is an expo-style event where attendees pay for tickets to access a beautiful room stuffed to the gills with the stuff a pregnant woman needs to know about in her first year of motherhood. Stylish baby gear and opportunities to win fabulous prizes greeted guests at every turn. I probably said, “Wow!” twenty times.

I was helping the Philips AVENT team introduce their new double electric Comfort Breast Pump to expectant moms; the space we created was an oasis that included free massages and comfy chairs to take a break from walking the floor. We also talked about breasts. I won’t lie: it does get a little awkward to talk breast pumping with a man who is not yet on the other side of the childbirth experience.

The ballroom space offered moms a chance to check out strollers, baby carriers, designer high chairs, and cribs. Resource providers, such as LA baby coach Jenni June, Urban Sitter, and giggle — along with a bajillion cupcake bakeries — were on hand to introduce themselves to the pregnant women and woo them with free samples.

I’m not even kidding you guys, there was a red carpet entrance and a crapload of awesome gift bags.

It was simply adorable to see all the guests sporting their round bellies. Partners walked alongside, carrying bags, dutifully listening to marketing folks explain the features and benefits of all the baby gear.

So what does one say to an expectant rookie mom who has arrived at such an event?

I felt pressure to strike the right tone, to be positive, encouraging, and also useful without being scary. I mean what’s the point of telling someone that childbirth is excruciatingly painful? There’s no way around it. We may as well focus on the cupcakes.

Should I say, “Look, you don’t need all this stuff in advance. The price of your stroller does not reflect your love for your baby.” Or say, “Here are ten things I learned in the first month that I want to pass on to you, ” and risk that she can hardly understand what I’m saying and will come away feeling overwhelmed? Or maybe the startled-looking pregnant woman doesn’t even share my values and will be 100% fine going in another direction without my guidance.

Ignorance is bliss. And so are cupcakes. (Did I mention the cupcakes?)

I am extra cautious when talking to pregnant strangers whom I truly, sincerely want to help. Multiply that by 500. Certain factors impact each woman’s experience of early motherhood, but I can’t guess where a new mom lands on the spectrum without getting to know her better. Here are the obstacles that prevent me from doling out buckets of unsolicited advice:

• Support system. I don’t know how much support she’ll have at home. Is she single? Does her husband travel a lot for work? Will they have hired help? Does her mother live in town?
• Work situation. I don’t know if she’ll be back at work within 6 weeks, 6 months, or ever. One adorable woman I talked to had already given birth. She was wearing her 11-day old in a Baby Bjorn carrier and said she had already worked a few shifts at the restaurant where she was a waitress.
• Shopping preferences. Does buying stuff make her feel good? Some of us like to acquire beautiful things, gadgets, or just get a little head start in providing for the baby to practice feeling like a parent. Some fear spending money on the wrong things or don’t have room for loads of “stuff”. I can’t tell by looking at your belly if you like to shop or hate to shop.

We tried to write The Rookie Mom’s Handbook so that it would speak to all new moms, and it’s challenging to not start every sentence with “if.”

“If you live in an urban area…”

“If you have a flexible work schedule…”

“If you’re bottle feeding…”

“If your baby sleeps in a crib…”

There are so many different variables! Though I post a lot of tips on this website, when I’m in person with a new mom, I’m actually pretty quiet. I mostly listen to what they say and agree with them. I wait for them to ask me specific questions.

If you have five minutes with a first-time mom-to-be, what do you like to tell her?

Note: this same event is coming to San Francisco on April 25, and I’ll be there again to help answer questions about the Philips AVENT comfort pump.

photos: The really good pictures in this post are by photographer Danielle Wang. The rest are from my Instagram account.

We are super duper excited about launching a series of posts about babysitting, sponsored by UrbanSitter.com.  UrbanSitter is a website and a mobile app that allows you to find sitters YOUR FRIENDS LIKE based on Facebook connections. We are big fans, and because babysitting is such a great topic, we’re dividing everything we want to say into five separate posts. This first one is an interview with founder and mom of two, almost three, Lynn Perkins.

Lynn, we met at a party last year. Do you recall who was watching your twins that night? Do you have an arsenal of sitters or do you have a main squeeze in that department?

We definitely have a favorite babysitter who has watched our kids fairly regularly over the past few years. I believe she was the babysitter who was with them the night that I met you. I would say that I have three ‘go-to’ babysitters at any given time and five or six other sitters who have babysat for my kids just a couple of times. The nice part is that I found most of these sitters on UrbanSitter and I booked them because they are friends with other sitters I’ve liked. So it is an arsenal of sitters, but most of them know each other.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about hiring or managing a babysitter?

1. Spend time watching the sitter interacting with your children before you leave.
2. Make sure your instructions are clearly explained or written out, including when, under what specific circumstances you would like the sitter to phone or contact you. For example, do you want her to call if your child won’t eat his broccoli, if he won’t sleep, or only if there is an emergency.

UrbanSitter had just launched when we met. Are you surprised by the way the past 12 months have gone?

I’m happy with the growth to date and excited that the network of parents and sitters continues to grow. It’s amazing how small the world is and how many connections are made daily.

How did you get the idea to create UrbanSitter?

As busy parents, we saw a need – we were finding it time consuming and difficult to find a trusted sitter that was actually available when we needed the help. We needed a way to simplify and personalize the process, so parents could go online to find babysitters recommended by friends.

You told me that parents and sitters both get uncomfortable when the moment of payment comes. What did they tell you about that?

Parents and sitters report feeling awkward at the time of payment because parents sometimes forget the agreed upon rate, and then it is uncomfortable for the sitters when parents are counting out cash. Sitters want to know they are getting the agreed upon rate, but don’t want to count the money in front of the parents. We introduced a “pay online” option that helps parents and sitters avoid this awkwardness.

This one is for the rookies. What did you learn in your first year as a mom that surprised you?

I have twins so my biggest lesson learned the first year relates to having two babies. I remember following advice from books or doctors with both babies. One would react exactly like the book or doctor told me he would. The other would react completely differently. It made me a more relaxed parent because I learned that sometimes as a parent you do everything you can to create the best situation for your child and they may not react how you expect.

Thanks to Lynn for these tidbits about Urban Sitter. Look for more in the coming weeks, and feel free to post your questions about using babysitters here.

My middle school ex-boyfriend, Neil, is now a rookie dad to a toddler (ain’t facebook great?). He likes to take his son, Graham, out in the Burley trailer for coffee dates. Neil drinks the coffee while Graham sips his leche.

Neil reports:

Even in the fun Portland winter weather, I like to take Graham out as much as I can. He’s recently been asking to go for rides in the Burley, so I take him to a coffee shop that’s ~1.5 miles away. He usually falls asleep, but didn’t yesterday. We did that trip again today. 3 for 3 now. We’ll see what he does tomorrow.

Don’t underestimate the power of sitting and sipping your normal beverages in a special place. I used to watch parents of toddlers serve their sons little demitasse cups of foamy or whipped milk at our corner cafe. Adorable. And sometimes free!

The baby version of this activity is Pretend You’re in Paris.

Since my recent 13-day cleanse, during which I took a vacation from sugar, alcohol, gluten, dairy, and caffeine, I am pretty much still off the caffeine. But like most people around the world, I still like to start my morning with a warm beverage to clutch. Since we’re simply not going to make a pot of caffeinated coffee for my husband and then a separate pot of decaf for me, I have returned to the ritual I maintained during pregnancy: three quarters mug of heated milk, topped of by a splash of coffee. Devotees would not call this a latte, but I’m loose with my coffee terms.

My morning not-latte-but-more-like-cafe-au-lait is sometimes made fancier with the tools in my coffee arsenal.

This post is sponsored by the Milk Mustache Campaign, who I think would be very pleased by how much milk I use to make the coffee taste good.

On October 4 at 10am pacific, we’ll be joining a Twitter party with them (over coffeed milks), and you can tune in with the hashtag #lattelove. I mean, if you love lattes.

Through a lot of random clicking, I learned that I actually am not that far off when it comes to my milk to coffee ratio. See this little animation for details:

The other thing I do in the morning is check Facebook, my Google Reader, and CNN.com. I don’t read it all, but I like to know that the world didn’t fall apart while I was sleeping.

Apart from the blogs belonging to the ladies I actually know pretty well (Wendolonia, Off the Meathook, Superhero Journal) some of the blogs I like to skim are the ones that provide a lot of eye candy. Big images, white space, and ideas that make me want to be more creative. My Bay Area girls mentioned above do this for me as well. But recently I’ve become aware another bunch of local-to-me bloggers and they are doing fabulous things:

• Family Sponge – Jadah won me over by coming to a Help A Mother Out fundraiser. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk, but when I looked at her blog, I wanted to climb inside. The photographs are so gorgeous and the green smoothie recipes are delicious.
• Tinkerlab – Rachelle and I have crossed virtual paths a few times and met in person this summer. She designs all sorts of exploratory hands-on activities for kids and shares them with lovely pictures. If you have a preschooler, add this one to your daily routine.
• Fabulistas – I met Kara at a blogger gathering in San Francisco and she is a rookie mom to one adorable little girl. When she told me about her “project fun” mission, which is to go on outings with Alice and document them, I felt we should link up. At least literally. Like right here. Her site design is bright and her voice is total relatable, even if you don’t like shoe shopping as much as she does.
• She Suggests – While it sounds like a product review blog, it’s not at all. Yuliya is another new blogging friend that I met in person in San Francisco and she is more a humor writer than anything. I mean, maybe she’s more a mom than anything, but from a reader’s point of view, she’s terribly smart and funny. I will keep reading.
• The Bold Italic is a San Francisco-centric blog. The design is uber-current and the events and attractions they cover are ones that I would have been all over in my pre-kid days. I still like to know what’s up, so I like visiting this site. How else would I know that a $450 Burrito Body Pillow exists? Next time I’m pregnant (NEVER) I will sleep with one of those instead of a pastel number from Babies R Us.

What helps you start your day right? If you don’t have one of those little milk frothers in the picture, consider it. I love that thing!

Reprinted from the wayback machine cuz I’m super busy today.

Holden and I used to cook together a lot. Before his little brother Milo joined our family, Holden would stand by my side at the kitchen sink and crack eggs, stir with a whisk, or rip greens for a salad. Unfortunately, I must confess, I now put the two of them in front of a 25 minute kid show while I race to get dinner together most nights. So I was a perfect candidate for this lesson a few weeks ago.

Holden and Shayna cooking at Eat Real Fest

At the Oakland Eat Real Festival, an amazing event aimed at helping folks “put the food back into fast,” Holden cooked on stage as part of the children’s cooking demo. Along with 3 other children, he helped make “Scissor salsa salad” under the guidance of Shayna Marmar.

Shayna is a from-scratch cooking teacher-extraordinaire. She started Honeypie Cooking & Events in Oakland to bring fresh, seasonal, and delicious foods back into our kitchens.

Scissor Salsa Salad, all kid-made

As she was leading the children through food preparation, Shayna talked about eating fresh real whole foods as often as possible. We sat on hay bales as she encouraged us to get our children more involved in the creation of their meals. She has seen many parents who said their children hated veggies eat their words while their kids ate salad for the first time.

I emailed her after the event to find out if she had any tips for the Rookie Moms who want to cook more with children, and she told us to get out the safety scissors:

While safety scissors are not generally thought of as a cooking tool, they work great in helping kids of all ages cut various fruits and vegetables. Keep a pair in your kitchen drawer, specifically for cooking, and your child will instantly be able to assist with food preparation tasks without the use of a sharp knife.

Help your child along by cutting the fruits and vegetables into slices/strips beforehand. Foods that can be cut with safety scissors include tomatoes, bell peppers, apples, peaches, cabbage, and cucumbers, among others.

She offered a ton of great hacks for getting kids involved in cooking; here are a few other tips I picked up from the demo:

• Leave your perfectionism at the door; better that the food products are kid-made than perfect.
• Do rough cut prep in advance so kids can avoid a lot of waiting time as well as large knives on counters.
• Think about what foods can be torn by small hands: lettuce, herbs, bread…
• For safer cutting, have a pair of kids’ safety scissors dedicated for use on food (see above) or use a butter knife for other foods that won’t easily fit in the scissors.
• 

  Mashing out some tortillas

  Don’t have a rolling pin? Wash some tools from the play-doh kit or use a cleaned can. Let kids use their hands to pound out dough and smash out tortillas.

• During the final tasting, ask kids “what would you change next time? what would you add more/less of?” to get them thinking and engaged in the process. Holden said “more tomatoes,” a big boy said “more spicy,” the little girl said “just right,” and the big girl refused to taste it. (can’t please everyone!)

Taste test, hmmm more tomatoes please

—–
I want to thank Shayna for sharing her tips with us!

Shayna offers cooking classes & parties for older children, teens, adults, and families as well as workshops for teachers & parents highlighting tips & tricks for involving children in the process of preparing and eating wholesome and tasty foods.

She can also turn your next kids birthday party into a healthy cooking party, emphasizing fun in the kitchen. How brilliant is that?! She also blogs at Peas and Carrots 123.

Like they used to say on TV, membership has it’s privileges. Both of the Bay Area children’s museums that I have been to are part of a consortium of Children’s Museums that have reciprocal memberships. This means that if you get a one-year membership at Habitot in Berkeley, for example, you can go to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito for a significant discount. Also, if you travel to a place with another children’s museum, you are totally in.

The point, however, is not the membership. The point is that these are destinations with rooms for crawlers. Usually they have mats on the floor or different textures and large scale shapes that babies and young toddlers can put their grubby hands on, in and through. The Discovery Museum Tot Room, for example, has at least four waterbed-type areas for babies.

If you live near one of these places, and buy a membership, consider it a mommy meet market. Go there when you and baby are feeling lonely, let down your hair, and have a juice box or two.

Your 47th weekly challenge is to seek out a children’s museum and make a special trip there with your baby. Tell us, how was it? (Baby too young for this outing? Start at the beginning.)

Photos: Minnesota Children’s Museum;  Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco

Most classes for babies provide a free trial experience. Take advantage of these freebies before committing to a paid class. Try to talk your other mama friends into joining you so it’s the most fun for YOU.

Your 41st weekly challenge is to contact a local music, dance, or exercise class for moms and babies, and arrange to take a free class.

• Kindermusik Village classes are for babies under 18 months and each class is 45 minutes long.
• Gymboree classes for babies focus on either music or playing – you can choose.
• Music Together is mixed age classes up to age five and the classes are an hour long.
• The Little Gym starts as young as four months old with a general movement and socialization curriculum.
• My Gym is a children’s “fitness center” that starts classes with parent participation at age – get this – six weeks!

You may find that your local independent music or movement centers for kids offer a free trial visit as well. Have you tried any? Let us know!

Not ready for this rookie mom challenge? Go back and start with an easier one.

One of the blogs in my Google Reader is Mom Inc, Daily. I was introduced to it by Mom Inc, Daily contributor, Jackie, a neighborhood friend and designing mom.

The founder, Cat, is a stationery designer in San Francisco. She launched the blog as a place for her and fellow designing moms to capture some of the tools, inspirations and best practices that support them in running creative businesses during the hectic years of motherhood. Here’s a little styleboard Cat uses to convey what her life looks like.

Cat does Q and As with other folks who are running creative businesses. I love when she asks them what their day looks like. (I just don’t love when they say that they wake up and exercise at 6 am because it makes me feel like I’m already behind.) Read some of the interviews >

Another category of posts I find intriguing are the “Biz How-Tos” which share behind-the-scenes info about being an Etsy seller or planning an event or photographing still objects. Read some of those posts here >

Awww, robot birthday party! Read about it on Mom Inc, Daily!

Now you tell me about one blog you read regularly. What is it that you like? The voice? The humor? The recipes? The photos? The comments from other readers?

If you are like I was, by the time my baby was 10 weeks old, I had not exercised for about 6 months. Baby Bootcamp was my re-introduction to sweating and I loved it. I am not a gym-goer in my normal life, and Baby Bootcamp was perfect for me. Here’s why:

1. Exercising in the company of other sleep-deprived, temporarily overweight, leaky-breasted women is more fun.
2. It was no problem that I walked the course rather than ran it much of the time. I had many excuses lined up for not running (all of which are somewhat valid and mostly shared by other participants).
3. Stopping to deal with my fussy baby was par for the course.
4. It got me out of the house to do something good for me and enjoy the outdoors.

This is our 23rd Rookie Mom challenge. Not ready for it? Go back and pick an easier one.

Once you’ve got the hang of it, you can invite your partner and show him or her how awesome and athletic you are. The other parent and grandparents can tag along for free.

Check babybootcamp.com and a similar organization strollerstrides.com for locations and schedules.

Did you complete this challenge? Share your story.

• Comment below and spill the details.
• Share a picture with us on Facebook.

[photo: strollerstrides.com]

Your weekly challenge is to enjoy the rainbow of colors at an outdoor plant nursery. Let her touch/listen to the wind chimes on display, tour the orchid hot-house, and watch the koi in the water garden pond (the bright-colored fish swarm up to greet kids because they expect food). A baby carrier is perfect to navigate the tight corners.

In Berkeley, I like the East Bay Nursery for its rows and rows of colorful flowers and funny butterflies. Just watch out for the bees.

This is your 22nd challenge. Did you complete this challenge? Share your story.

• Comment below and spill the details.
• Share a picture with us on Facebook.

Is your baby too old to be worn around in a baby carrier while you describe the difference between perennials and annuals? Toddlers and preschoolers are ready to “help” plant their own favorite veggies in the backyard. Not your style? Choose a different challenge.

A fun suggestion from our friend and fellow rookie mom, Rosa, is to pack yourself up and head into the city for a museum outing. Assume you go to a cocktail party sometime soon. When someone asks what you do, instead of mumbling about maternity leave or bursting into tears when you think about how you can’t drink much because you have to nurse every 3 hours and wake up at 6 am, change the subject and say “Have you seen the Rothko show?”

This is your twelfth weekly challenge.

Many museums waive admission fees on certain days of the month. Make that your big day.

Rosa reports that SFMoMa was a successful outing. “Both babies were intrigued by the colorful modernist paintings and sculptures,” she brags. “Mommies get to chat and enjoy the art too.”

For our Bay Area mommas, she suggests that you arrive late morning to San Francisco and use the Nordstrom mother’s lounge as home base. There is a great changing/nursing area for comfort and privacy. You can lunch in the mall’s basement food court, Sony Metreon or if the weather permits, eat outside in Yerba Buena Gardens.

Becky in Boston said that her baby Nick was a trooper at the Museum of Fine Arts. “He was patient. After lunch he nursed and went to sleep in the stroller, I pushed him around and looked at art, when he awoke, we looked at art together – I was amazed at what a great day we had together.”

I took Holden to the BAM/PFA here in Berkeley with some other mommy friends and he enjoyed it a lot (which means no screaming fits — yay!). We ate a nice lunch at the little cafe and negotiated tables, strollers, nursing, and crowds. Parking was kind of a pain, so it was nice to have girlfriends to sort out the logistics.

Did you complete this challenge? Love it or hate it, tell us how it went:

• Comment below and spill the details.
• Share a picture with us on Facebook.
• Name your destination on Twitter and use hashtag #rookiemoms.
• Or, link in the comments to your own blog post about this challenge.