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

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.

Baby-friendly theaters? Yes, please.

We sure love our DVRs and Hulu, but refuse to give up on going to the theater. Did you know some theaters also have special showings for new parents? These showings have different names in different cities, but the idea that yours will not (most likely) be the loudest baby in the movie theater is the common thread.

Both of our firstborns were frequent attendees of “Baby Brigade” (now known as “Bringing Up Baby“) at the El Cerrito Theater during their first year.

Select theaters are participating in a program called Baby Pictures. Check the website to see if there is a baby movie showing in a city near you.

The Kerasotes chain in Illinois and Indiana offers Matinee Movie Magic. I thought I was pretty magical when I sat in a movie theater while doing my first in public breastfeeding (without crying!) when Julian was 5 weeks old. (This mistakenly led Heather, my 19-weeks pregnant escort, to believe that nursing is easy.)

Stroller matinees are a good early outing for freaked out new parents. Crying is totally allowed.

This is your ninth weekly rookie mom challenge. Even if you cannot find a mom and baby movie in your area, consider taking a risk on an 11 am showing. Heather and I brought baby Milo to Knocked Up while I was super pregnant with Scarlett. We saw the first show of the day and only one other person was in the theater. Milo stayed in his carseat for much of the movie and when he got sick of that, Heather held him up on her lap facing the movie.  The volume at the theater is much louder than any grunting or fussing that tiny babies do.

In LA, Monday Morning Mommy Movies weekly at 11:00 am at the Grove, Glendale, and Northridge.

In Portland, McMenamin’s Kennedy School hosts the occasional Mommy Matinee and for cheap!

Austin, TX has Baby Day Movie at Alamo Draft House Cinema (Tuesdays). Parents are allowed to bring infants into the movie for shows starting before 2:05 pm. (check website for movie times and location).

In San Francisco, realtor Jill Russo sponsors a monthly Mommy Movie on the second Thursday of each and every month. And it’s FREE!

Have you done this outing? Please tell us where!
Loved it or hated it?
Not quite ready for a movie? Pick a challenge from an earlier week.

photos: Grand Lake by ThomasHawk on flickr; theater interior Associated Press

Christine Koh lives in the Boston area with her husband and 6-year-old daughter and is expecting a second daughter in March 2011. She is a recovering academic, designer, relay runner as well as a good friend. She tweets about it all at @bostonmamas.

I asked her a few questions about her experiences and expectations as a born-again rookie mom. We define a born-again rookie as a parent whose youngest child is school-age.

Tell us what are 3 things you’re excited about trying that weren’t around when Laurel was born.

Well, the three top things I’m excited about trying were, in fact, around when Laurel was born but I didn’t take advantage of them. Hands down, the first is (successful) bottle feeding — not only to give me a little freedom but so Jon and Laurel can enjoy feeding the baby. I was woefully lazy about introducing the bottle to Laurel — we didn’t get around to it until she was 3 months old and by that time she was like, “Um, no, Mom, that’s so not happening.” I’m still not wild about pumping but hopefully this time around my liquid gold will actually get used, not just tossed down the sink after refused attempts! It’s so funny…Laurel has been saying, “Mom, don’t be lazy about the bottle this time around because I want to feed my baby sister!”

The second thing I’m excited to try is mom/baby yoga classes. I’ve become very dedicated to yoga in the last few years and I want to keep it up after the baby is born — it just feels so good to stretch everything out and I’m curious to see how it would go with a baby. I thought about trying classes with Laurel but never got around to it.

And the third thing I want to try is running with a jogging stroller. As Heather well knows, I started running about a year and a half ago and one of my most incredible experiences of 2010 was participating in a 200-mile relay with the Eat. Blog. Run. team. The team plans on regrouping in 2011 and I’m hoping I can get myself ready in time with the help of a jogging stroller. One of my girlfriends is throwing me a baby shower and I requested a recycled/secondhand shower (though I’m also welcoming fresh diapers since we’ll obviously need lots of those!) — I’m keeping my fingers crossed that someone has a jogging stroller they no longer want!

Do you have any new fears or concerns?

I’ve actually found myself remarkably Zen about this pregnancy and upcoming delivery. I mean, yes, of course our lives will change a lot and there are some logistical concerns (for example, I really should look into some child care help sometime soon…), but otherwise, I’m feeling super laid back and happy about it all — both in my upcoming role as a mother of two and professionally. I think it helps that my professional life fits so much better with my role as a mom than it did when I was working on my postdoctoral fellowship while pregnant with Laurel. Back then I was surrounded by men at Harvard and MIT and there was a very clear sense that the (professional) clock was ticking and that I was screwing myself by making the choice to become a mom. It was really depressing.

What will your first outing be? Do you want to join us on our RM challenge?

OK, this is going to sound totally crazy, but when I think “outing” I think trip, and when I think trip, I think about Mom 2.0 in April! Part of me feels as if it wouldn’t be such a big deal to travel with a 4-week-old, and of course everyone else tells me I’m totally crazy. I guess I just loved the conference and people so much last year that it pains my heart to think about missing the action this year. I suppose I should keep reminding myself that it would not be the same experience with giant leaky boobs and a newborn in tow!

On a more local scope, I think your Rookie Moms challenge is wonderful; I completely agree that it helps to have outings — when Laurel was a baby I felt that I needed to get out at least once a day, even if it was a walk around the neighborhood or a visit to my parent’s house. I always felt a little deflated on the days where I hadn’t gone out and I literally could not recall a single thing I had done all day!

More specifically, given that I love cafe culture and all things crafty, your Week 1 (pretend you’re in Europe) and Week 4 (visit the fabric store) challenges totally speak to me! I was very lucky when Laurel was born in that a lot of my local girlfriends were having kids at the same time and there was no shortage of play dates. And admittedly, I also never went to mom’s groups because the concept felt too hard and a little exhausting — as in, “Ugh, what if it’s clique-y? What if I don’t connect with anyone?” However, a couple of things have happened since then… first, I’ve learned that no matter how different, a mom is a mom — we won’t all agree on how to parent but we all have a common language. And second, I’ve heard wonderful things about mom’s groups at places such as Isis Parenting. (Disclosure: I knew about them back when Laurel was a baby but only shopped there… now I do some advisory work for them and truly have deep admiration for the educational and social resources they provide for parents.) There’s an Isis less than a mile from my home — just think, I could run with the baby in a jogging stroller and meet some new moms at a mom/baby yoga class!

Do you have any questions for our readers?

I’d actually love to hear from your readers about their favorite cloth diapers. Jon and I cloth diapered Laurel for about 6 months (we used cloth when at home and disposable when out and about…we’ll probably try to do something similar this time around) but we were using old fashioned diapers (a cover, liner, and rectangular tri-fold diaper) and a service (thank you in-laws!) and we probably would have gone a lot longer if we had modern cloth diapers that were better constructed and could be laundered at home. The old fashioned ones just got so messy and became impossible to line up as Laurel got squirmier. The technology has evolved so much and I’d love to hear about favorite brands and styles.

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Christine Koh completed her Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellowship in music and brain science before hanging up her academic spurs to become a writer, editor, designer, and creative consultant. She is the founder and editor of Boston Mamas, the designer behind Posh Peacock, writes a personal blog at Pop Discourse, pens the column Minimalist Mama, and hosts the talk video show Life.Style with Christine Koh.

Yes, I’m endorsing a product/service here. No, I am not being paid to do so.  It’s called Music Together and two past experieinces made me decide to recommend this activity.

Several of my friends had done Music Together for three consecutive “semesters” and then decided to skip a semester. During that period we met at the park during the time that many of us used to do Music Together and Sarah was saying how much she missed it, couldn’t wait til it started up again, and that not doing it made her see how much she values it. Our park-based playdate was simply filling the hole in her life left by abstaining from Music Together.

Ok, so Sarah (hearts) Music Together. Her enthusiasm made me think hard about how I feel about it. I had been thinking that it’s just too expensive, and then I decided that I agree with Sarah.

Later that day, I read that most North American families only know two or three songs to sing to their children when they are born, and one of them is often 99 Bottles of Beer. And here’s where I relate to how much value you get out of these classes. From Music Together, my husband and I have learned countless songs in that can be sung and re-sung in different ways. The class is designed to teach you, the parent, how to incorporate music into your kid’s life.* Each song can be changed around to include your kid’s name, interests or description of the activities you’re doing. Our teacher, Ryk, also gives great advice on using music to distract while diaper changing or putting on shoes. People, it works.

Julian was obsessed with the CDs that come with the class. He begged for us to put them on and then, as a baby even, would smile and wave when he heard the first song.

*The class is not about building music skills in your kid. In fact, they are welcome to sit absolutely still and silent. The parent or caregiver is the one participating. The theory is that you can develop musical interest and enthusiasm in children by enabling them to watch you have fun with sounds, songs and instruments. Given that we don’t have community music experiences in this culture, our kids will not pick up songs to pass down to their kids unless we make it happen.

So there you have it. My love letter to Music Together.

Find one near you.

And again, this is not an advertisement.

[Photo from Music Together's website]

The founder and editor of BostonMamas.com is Christine Koh. Her daughter Laurel is now in Kindergarten, but like me, she has no problem digging back into her brain to remember those first shocking months during which “going for a walk” is suddenly an activity to plan your day around.

Whether you are on maternity leave or just visiting, here are Christine’s ideas for spending a week with your babe in Boston:

One of the many reasons I adore Boston is that it’s a wonderfully family friendly place to live. Whether you desire urban or more bucolic surrounds, a variety of fun adventures are within reach. Here’s a sample itinerary that will make any rookie mom in Boston look like a pro:

Monday: Start the week off in classic Boston fashion and meander along the stroller friendly walkways of the Boston Common and Public Garden. Be sure to stop at the Make Way for Ducklings statues for a cute photo opp with baby. The Common/Garden also serves as a perfect launch point to explore Newbury Street or Charles Street.

Tuesday: After your busy day in the city, enjoy a leisurely, local day via your neighborhood public library. Many public libraries in Massachusetts have wonderful children’s rooms; investigate your library’s offering in advance to coordinate your visit with story time or sing-alongs.

Wednesday: October in Boston means ridiculously cute pictures of your pumpkin amidst pumpkins. Not too far outside the city are many wonderful farms where you can take cute photos, enjoy kids activities, and stock up on farm fare.

Thursday: When Laurel was a baby oh, how we walked. It was the only thing that soothed her. Go beyond the loops around the block and explore Boston’s Emerald Necklace – a 1,100-acre chain of parks in Boston and Brookline – which offer amazing green spaces within the city for nature walks and activities. Another wonderfully stroller friendly option outside the city is the Minuteman Bikeway. This paved bikeway passes through Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, and Bedford.

Friday: You’ve made it to the end of a busy week and deserve a little restoration. Enjoy a yoga class with baby at Isis Maternity (schedules vary by location).

Saturday: If you’re longing for fine art but can’t fathom the confines of a museum with baby, consider the DeCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln. This serene outdoor sculpture park will afford you the opportunity to enjoy art and nature in tandem (I recommend babywearing for this event so you can walk the grounds freely).

Sunday: Nothing spells Sunday like brunch. Family friendly brunch spots in the Boston area abound; no doubt there’s a good location near you, otherwise hop over to Boston Mamas for favorite family friendly dining recommendations.

Bonus Activity (urban): Does your baby like to rock? Do you miss grown up music? Baby Loves Disco gives grownups a way to enjoy the music scene with babies in tow. Rock out with baby on the dance floor, relax in the chill zone, and enjoy healthy snacks.

Bonus Activity (bucolic): One of my favorite green spots in the Boston area is the Beaver Brook Reservation on the Belmont/Waltham line. This gem for the whole family includes a spray pool and playground, plus the reservation includes 59 acres open to walking, biking, and picnicking.

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Thank you Christine for sharing your favorite memories with us. For more current reflections, see BostonMamas.com.

For another rookie mom’s take on fun times in Boston, see Becky’s warm week in Boston post.

Especially if you live in the Boston area, check out the sunrise photos of Joe Gerry He takes a photo every day, so you can purchase one that comes from a date that’s meaningful to you and the recipient.

Becky writes that she was given one of his prints of the sunrise the day her baby Nick was born, and it has been a cherished reminder of that day. “We’ve bought many more, for wedding and baby gifts, and they always generate tears in the recipient.”

You could also take a sunrise photo yourself for a new mom friend if you get notified of her labor in time. Or spend the whole week that she is due waking up at the crack of dawn to capture the sunrise. Oh wait, you already wake up at the crack of dawn. Consider this a way to capture proof of your selflessness.

Fellow rookie mom Becky describes some of Boston’s best bets for babies especially for the Spring and Summer:

Monday — Play it Local
We live near Cleveland Circle in Brighton, Massachusetts, close to Boston College, sandwiched between the towns of Newton and Brookline. One of the delights of living in Boston is that it is so easy to walk to places of interest . We have a number of favorite neighborhood activities: playing at the Waldstein Playground, walking around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and visiting the Brookline Public and Newton Free Libraries. While, for the adults, these may not compete in interest value with the Art Museum or the Aquarium, they are free and when you’re a new little guy or gal, probably just as stimulating.

The Waldstein Playground is between Dean Road and Clinton Path, behind the buildings on the south side of Beacon Street. It has baby and kid swings, a sandbox, a spray fountain for playing in, and other climbing equipment. My son’s favorite feature is that from the park you can see the “T” trains going by. The Chestnut Hill Reservoir, adjacent to Cleveland Circle, is about two miles around, and affords views across the water, and of the local wildlife: swans, turtles and ducks.

Both the Brookline and Newton Libraries have large children’s rooms, and each has a nice selection of board books arranged so that babies can pull out any they find interesting.

Tuesday — Make Way for Ducklings
One of America’s classic children’s stories, Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings is set in Boston. If you have read this story to your child, you must make a trip to the Public Garden (located in central Boston, at Arlington Street, between Beacon and Boylston streets).

In the spring and summer the Public Garden is alive with trees and flowers. When we visited last, much of the grass was roped off to allow for new growth, but we did find a section of grass near the duckling statues (memorializing Make Way) where Nick could crawl around. The bronze statues of mama duck and ducklings make a wonderful photo opportunity.

While you’re there, ride the Swan Boats. For just $2.75 (for adults, kids 2-15 are just $1.25) you get a tour around the shallow pond in the middle of the Garden, for a close up look at the park’s real ducks! For a longer outing, also visit the Boston Common’s Frog Pond, where you can wade in the water. Check the website for hours.

Wednesday — Enjoy the Museum of Fine Arts
Located in the Fenway, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is one of the country’s oldest art museums. It seems an unlikely destination for babies, and if you’re on a budget the admission price may be prohibitive ($15 for adults for the permanent museum collection and $22 for special exhibitions), but the Museum can be a great day’s outing. The collection is encyclopedic, including everything from Greek statues, Egyptian mummies, Asian pottery, Impressionist paintings, musical instruments, and contemporary prints and photographs. The Lane Gallery, with its colorful modern paintings, is a great place to start, as you can point out shapes and colors in the bold art works.

At one end of the hemicycle, the museum provides a small room (with changing table) for private nursing of infants, though I’ve also made myself comfortable on the second floor leather couches (adjacent to the rotunda) for this purpose. If your kid needs a break to make some noise and crawl around, the Calderwood Courtyard outside the basement level cafeteria is a wonderful spot.

This museum doesn’t allow touching, but if your child likes looking at picture books, the MFA offers lots of new subjects for examination! [If the ticket price seems exorbitant, consider a City Pass, which is just $39 and includes admission to six area attractions: Museum of Science, New England Aquarium, Skywalk Observatory at the Prudential Center, Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard Museum of Natural History and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum.]

Thursday — Stroll Coolidge Corner and hit the Farmer’s Market
One of my favorite activities when Nick was a small baby was to take him to the Brookline Farmer’s Market. From my house it is about a two-mile walk to Coolidge Corner, where on Thursday afternoons the Brookline Farmer’s market is full of people, including lots of moms pushing strollers. You can get all the typical farmer’s market produce, along with flowers, local goat cheeses, and there’s an ice cream truck as well. For a long list of Boston-area farmers’ markets with opening dates and times, see here.

Coolidge Corner has a mix of great local shops and restaurants and chains: be sure to check out the award winning local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith, and a wonderful (if high end) toy store called Magic Beans. Magic Beans has a story time for kids 0-3 on Tuesday mornings at 11, and on Fridays they host Music Together classes. They have a playscape in the back of the store, with a train table and toys for kids to try out, as well as a rocking chair where I’ve nursed Nick on more than one occasion. From Magic Beans head north on Harvard Avenue to get to a kid’s park – just a block or two up on the right side of the street.

Friday — Cambridge Common and Barefoot Books
Harvard University is located in Cambridge across the Charles River from Boston. The beautiful old main campus is worth a visit, just to stroll through the brick buildings and soak up the “smart.” A short walk from the campus is Cambridge Common, which has a very nice fenced kid’s playground with sandbox, climbing equipment, and swings.

Further out on Massachusetts Avenue (a walk of about 15 minutes or a quick drive) gets you to Barefoot Books, one of Cambridge’s treasures. Located at 1771 Massachusetts Ave, this publisher’s retail store features their beautiful books, offers readings for babies and kids on Friday and Saturdays at 10:30 a.m., and exhibits original illustration art work for budding young gallery-goers.

Saturday — New England Aquarium
The Aquarium is another of Boston’s more pricy attractions ($17.95 for adults, $9.95 for 3-11 year-olds), but one that is cool on a hot summer day, and bound to delight all members of the party. Compared to some of its west coast counterparts, the New England Aquarium is on the small side, which is just as well for a baby. In the main hall of the aquarium you’ll find several enclosures of penguins, whose vocalizations reverberate around the building. Small tanks can be found around the perimeter of the building with different types of fish, or specific habitats. In the center of the building is a massive tank with giant sea turtles, sharks, and eels that you can walk around, up to the top. At the top of the ramp, you can look down into the tank. Additional exhibits can be found downstairs and sea lions swim in an enclosure outside (accessed through doors at the rear of the building). The Aquarium can be crowded and noisy, so plan your visit during a weekday if at all possible. [Also part of City Pass, see MFA, above]

Sunday — Get to know your resources: Isis Maternity
Isis Maternity is an organization and a group of retail stores that offer childbirth education, instructor-led infant playgroups, workshops, book signings and other events. Brigham and Women’s Hospital (where many of my friends have had their babies) contracts with Isis for their childbirth classes, as did Cambridge Birth Center, where my son was born. Isis is a wonderful place to find baby toys and goods (like slings, Boppy pillows, Robeez shoes, etc.) and is indispensable for nursing and pumping items, like replacement parts, nursing bras, milk storage bags, etc.

Isis has knowledgeable and friendly sales people, as well as lactation consultants who can be reached by phone or are available during a free drop-in “Breastfeeding Talk”. We have not yet joined one of the six-week “developmental playgroups,” but if they’re as useful and informative as the Newborn Essentials course we took before Nick was born, I can only imagine how wonderful they must be. If you join Isis ($39 for a six-month membership) you get weekly emails with information about child development and useful web resources.

Getting There and Back Again

Ride the T
My son loves trains, and for him, riding the “T” is a special treat. The “T” (short for MBTA, or Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) is a system of subway and street level trolleys, organized into four color-coded routes. The T is a great way to get around Boston, which has notoriously challenging driving, and even worse parking. When Nick was a newborn, we just took him on the train in the Bjorn.

Now that he’s stroller bound much of the time, it’s trickier. Most green-line T trains have steep steps, although some lines feature newer trains with low decks for easier access [in which case you want to board through one of the rear doors]. When I know we’ll be taking the T, I opt for the umbrella stroller, and just heft Nick, in the stroller, up the steps. As Boston is an old city, most of the T stations do not have elevators, so be prepared to carry the stroller up and down flights of steps. In the stations, the person selling tokens will release a special gate to allow a stroller to pass through the turnstiles. A moderately useful PDF brochure about accessibility can be found on the MTBA website.

A note on Boston Logan Airport
If you’re visiting Boston from elsewhere, and are flying through Terminal C of Boston’s Logan Airport, you should know about Kidport. At one end of the terminal (opposite the food court) there is a large play area for small children. With picture windows that face the runways, ample rocking chairs, and several different play stations (a model airplane to “fly,” a Lego table, a luggage ramp to slide down, a play kitchen, and a wonderful giant kinetic sculpture where balls move through a maze triggering noises as they go) it is a great place to pass some time as you wait for a flight. If your child is still too small to crawl, they may enjoy the mirrored walls at either end of the terminal.

Becky Senf is mother of one-year-old Nick and Ph.D. student at Boston University — We thank her so much for contributing and invite all of our readers to do the same!!

There is a lovely knitting shop in Oakland that invites us to come and knit with other moms, babies and moms-to-be. If you are a local to this area, check out Article Pract on Thursdays at 10.30.

Sarah in Portland wrote, “Mabel’s has long offered a knitting with babies hour on Mondays (1 to 3 p.m. I think), although I’ve most often gone with my babies at odd times and, often, found other babies there.”

Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks, also in Portland, has “clubs” — one is expectant moms, etc. They don’t have a specific time for babies now, either, but they welcome babies with toys and a little table just for them in the cafe.

Our Cambridge, MA correspondent, another Sarah, wrote “Minds Eye Yarns does not have a specific new moms group, however babies and children are always welcome, so long as they are accompanied by a parent or guardian! We also have lots of wonderful knitting patterns for baby and children’s clothing, toys, blankets etc, so come on down and check us out!”

Photo courtesy of shescrafty.com.

Sarah and I don’t know each other well– our husbands were college mates– but she was alone with me during the first five minutes after I left my baby with someone else, and so she has seen me Cry While Fat. Not my best moments. At the time, she was six months pregnant and I was one month unpregnant, and we were sharing a cab to a wedding.

When we were in our sophomore year of motherhood, I thought it would be nice to touch base, so I sent her an interview. Here’s how you do an interview: Write 10 questions in an email. Hit send. Wait for response.

I realize this type of thing is all over Facebook, but it’s more personal to do a 1:1 version.

I think it’s always fun to find out how other people do things. Perhaps next I will interview her about her life as a freelance writer, but for now, it’s all about Finn.

How old is Finn and what’s his most recent accomplishment?
Finn turned one a couple weeks ago. His most recent accomplishment, according to me, is letting go of my hands/the coffee table/the toilet (I know, I know) for about three seconds and then clapping enthusiastically for himself. But if you ask him, it’d probably standing on a window sill and holding on the top edge of the window while banging his forehead on the glass (how did I ever think it was a good idea to try that?).

What’s your favorite outing with Finn that’s not necessarily Finn-centric?
A long walk (or, if I’m feeling lazy, we take the MTA boat part way there) to this amazing Farmer’s Market in Haymarket Square in Boston on Friday mornings. I load up his under-the-stroller basket with tons of cheap and yummy fruit and veggies; meanwhile, he’s kept happy looking at all the colorful people and produce. Then we usually both eat a peach or something on the walk home.

What’s your most frequent way to spend the last hours before Dave gets home?
Counting the hours. Ha. Seriously, both Finn and I usually feel like used tissues by then. But the 5-7 p.m. hours frequently contain some combination of: a walk around the neighborhood, whirlwind toy pick-up, dinner preparation/Tupperware removal, a grocery store run when I realize we have nothing for dinner, sitting on my bed “reading” board books, and, yes, video watching.

What do you and Dave like to do with Finn on the weekend?
If it’s nice out (which its is about 2 months out of the year here), we like to spend as much of the day outside as possible. We’ll leave our house in the morning and stroll over to Beacon Hill and Back Bay, hit some playgrounds en route, grab some food and end up with a picnic near the duck pond at Boston Common.

Do you have any tips for moms of newborns in your neighborhood?
We live in Charlestown, a fairly large neighborhood of Boston. My best tip is to talk to the other moms here—there are hundreds of them and a handful of years ago they formed the Charlestown Mothers Association. They organize playgroups, music and art classes, parades, moms’ nights out—you name it. And, on their website at charlestownmothersassociation.org, they give lots of advice and recommendations on everything from nannies to strollers.

Have any veteran moms taken you under their wings? What did they show you?
What didn’t they show me? I feel like I asked dozens of moms for help and advice (and still do) about every one of the millions of brand new mind-boggling things that are thrown into your face the first year of motherhood. There is definitely an advantage to having friends who have kids before you; for me, I had enough of them so that their most important piece of advice finally sunk in: “There is no ‘normal’, there is no ‘perfect’—all you can do is your best.”

Give us a fashion tip.
I’m not sure it’s a tip, really…more like a secret. Frustrated and frumpy-feeling in pregnancy I talked myself into believing that I “deserved’ some overpriced 7 maternity jeans. They don’t have the full tummy panel, just the wide denim-colored elastic band. Anyway, they’re not only super-comfortable (such a refreshing change from the PBS—Plumber Butt Syndrome—prompted by most of my other jeans), they’re really cute. So a year later, I still wear them sometimes!