We all met in a Yahoo! group, PDX_Moms or some such. There were four of us who showed up, serendipitously, at a family get-together. We discovered that we all blogged, we all were working mamas, we all had children about the same ages. We had such a good time that we scheduled a mama's night out for the group, happily meeting a couple of other neighborhood mamas, as well. We talked for hours, and we all had the same ideas: we wanted to find a better way to get local moms together than the strange phenomenon of the email group, which seemed to so often devolve into one more outlet for advertising scrapbooking and lingerie parties.

We had the beginnings of the concept that night. We knew we wanted a web site that could be a resource for local moms. We were all energetic writers and idea generators. We wanted to share our knowledge. We brainstormed and came up with a name: urbanMamas. We were Portland's answer to UrbanBaby, or the Berkeley Parents Network, Zagat's for parents (later, we'd discover the Lila Guide, which ended up largely disappointing us).

Over the next several months, we set up a web site and began the difficult process of creating a taxonomy, of porting our various pieces of knowledge into a common format. Two of us got pregnant and had our second babies last summer, and then the computer which acted as server for our site died. It was a few months before we picked up the pieces, and when we did, we went the Typepad route.

It took a while to get up to speed in the hectic months following Truman's birth, but soon we were all posting regularly and adding other authors to our group every month or so. Local moms would come to see our reviews of local preschools or child-friendly restaurants, and stay for the conversation.

Throughout this all, the core group of us continued to get our families together for playdates, and parties, and running, and knitting nights, and fun of all sorts. Then, all of the sudden, we felt a little badly for excluding the bigger group. We decided to hold a mama's night out, a reprise of that one so long ago. We posted a notice on the blog.

When I arrived at the trendy wine bar, I was a little early, and didn't see anyone else who looked like a mom. A few minutes later, two moms (one pregnant) arrived, neither of whom I knew. Then another, and another. Five moms I'd never met.

We ended up with 10 or 12 mamas, and we took every last spare chair in the place. We were buzzing with our success; we'd had so many events that we'd advertised, and no one but our core group had come.

We started posting spur-of-the-moment trips to coffee shops, the museum, parks, public playdates. That's how our Friday playdate was born, and how I met a whole group of new mamas (one, mother of Everett's friend "kid," is late for everything just like me - I love her!).

Somehow, I've felt a connection with all of the mamas who've come to these events. In the past, I'd meet moms at email group-organized events, Gymboree, or the park, and connections were hard to come by. I'm not sure if it's the fact that people meet us, first, in our online personas and don't come if they don't already like us - or if there's something about meeting on a blog that weeds out the overwhelmingly shy, the judgmental, the hipper-than-thou. But I feel as if it's opened up whole new worlds of community to me, and to the city.

I can't recommend, enough, what we've done. If you're a little lonely in your town, I suggest finding the few most popular mama bloggers, and getting them together in a group blog. Be open. Talk about your feelings and review your favorite hotspots from a mama's perspective. Discuss pediatricians and potty training and parks. And next time you go to the coffee shop, invite your readers along. Maybe it will take a while, but soon, you could be playdatin' just like us. Go ahead! Try it. The worst you can do is make a friend.