Marin Mommies is rolling out its new event calendar, featuring the best family events in Marin and the Bay Area. You can find highlights of the day’s events at the top of the right sidebar on most pages on the site.

If your group, organization, or business is holding a local family event, feel free to add it to the calendar. You don't need to be a registered Marin Mommies user to add events, but registered users can edit their events, post images with them, and more. It's free to join, so why not register today?

If you have any questions or feedback about the event calendar (we're still tweaking things a bit here and there), feel free to contact us. We welcome your feedback!

Two great new programs for Marin moms and their babies are starting up in February. The Marin Mother’s Circle 0–6 Month Series is a six-week mother’s circle starting Tuesday, February 3, for moms and their 0–6-month-old babies, and the Marin Mother’s Circle 6–12 Months Series, for moms and their 6–12-month-old babies, also lasts for six weeks and begins Thursday, February 5. Both sessions are from 2:15 to 3:45 pm.

Some of the topics focused on include:

Marin Mommies is pleased to present another great guest article, this time by Mill Valley psychotherapist Lisa Nave, MA, MFT. Lisa specializes in working with parents, children, and families, and works from a holistic, integral psychotherapy model, which combines the best of western psychology with the best of the eastern wisdom traditions.

Today, we live in a technological society where much of our communication is virtual. Our society is more socially fragmented than it has ever been, with high divorce rates, disconnected suburban communities, and a lack of common values or even cultural rituals that keep us closely tied. In my private psychotherapy practice many of my clients have spoken of these issues over the years, and it is due to their distress that I decided to offer house calls as an optional service, if appropriate.

For issues such as parenting and child development, house calls may be the preferred method. There are several reasons for this:

Looking to take President-elect Barack Obama's call to a national day of service seriously? The Marin IJ has a rundown on volunteer opportunities happening in Marin today. Activities include cleanup days at the Golden Gate National Parks and sites in Novato and San Rafael. Read the IJ article here.

You can also search for service opportunities at Obama's USAService.org website. You can find an event, post one that you're hosting, and even find inauguration parties and gatherings to take in tomorrow's historic moment.

Diaper maker Pampers is offering parents a free Dora the Explorer- or Diego-themed potty training kit. Each kit includes a pair of Easy Ups Trainers, coupons, stickers and coloring pages, step-by-step potty training tips, a progress chart, and Dora or Diego training trophy.

Order your free potty training kit at www.pampers.com. There’s a limit of one kit per household. We ordered one, since we’re currently engaged in the whole potty training thing, and we’ll let you know what it’s like when it shows up.

Based on the popular series of children’s books by Jeff Brown, The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley is a whirlwind sixty-minute musical travelogue that will have parents and children scouring the globe with Stanley, meeting new and diverse friends from South Africa, Mexico and beyond!

Stanley Lambchop is a normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill kid. But one night while he’s sleeping, the bulletin board on the wall above his head comes loose and falls right on top of Stanley. The next morning he wakes up flat! Not just flat… but really flat! Stanley thinks it isn’t too bad at first because he can slide under doors, he’s the best at playing Hide-and-Seek, and his friends can fly him as a kite, but finally Stanley decides to do something about his unusual condition. The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley will take the audience along with Stanley as he mails himself off in an envelope to travel the world in hopes of finding a solution to his very curious problem!

I’m currently working on getting my 3-year-old toilet trained, and so far it’s going really well; she’s definitely ready and is taking to it like a duck to water, so to speak. I had a bit of a challenge in that department with my son, who’s now 5. Maybe I should have started sooner, but he didn’t really show much interest in the whole process. He was perfectly capable of using the toilet—he proved that to us, but seemed perfectly happy in diapers.

Finally, at 3-1/2 years old and a barely a week before preschool started, he was officially potty-trained. After my daughter was born, I decided that I would start the potty training process earlier than with my son. When my daughter turned 2, we introduced her to the potty. She actually sat on it a few times and peed in the toilet, but, like her brother, she didn’t show much interest and therefore it didn’t last very long. Within a few weeks, she didn’t want anything to do with toilet training. She, too was perfectly happy with her diaper, and my pediatrician told me not to push it so I let it be.

Join Thomas the Tank Engine, Percy, Sir Topham Hat, and the other denizens of the Island of Sodor at the Marin Center for Thomas & Friends Live! On Stage: A Circus Comes to Town. This 90-minute musical stage show extravaganza comes to San Rafael on Monday, March 9 at 7 pm and Tuesday, March 10 at 4 and 7 pm.

Tickets are on sale now. Ticket prices range from $12.50 to $55. For more information and to order tickets go to the Marin Center's website or call (415) 499-6800. Marin Center Box Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 am to 5 pm. You can also order tickets online via Ticketmaster.

Meet Olivia, everyone's favorite piglet and the precocious porcine star of Ian Falconer's Olivia series of children's books. Olivia will appear in person this Saturday, January 10, at the babyGap store at the Village in Corte Madera. She'll be on hand from noon to 3 pm.

The store is offering a special gift with purchases of $50 or more (in case you thought you'd get away without buying anything). For more information, call the store at (415) 924-4079.

Browse the Olivia books on Amazon.com here