As every parent knows, nothing stays the same. Babies eventually learn to sleep through the night. Toddlers get potty-trained and graduate out of diapers. Kids march off to kindergarten and teens leave home for college.

Here at Bay Area Parent, we are also seeing some changes. A new editor has joined our ranks. She is Carrie McCarthy, and she will be in charge of our all-important calendar. You can reach her at bapcalendar@parenthood.com.

Carrie is a long time Bay Area resident with a strong background in community activism. She is replacing Angela Geiser (angela.geiser@parenthood.com), who is moving into a position as our associate editor. We welcome them both with open arms.

We asked Carrie to introduce herself to our readers. Here she is, in her own words:

When I told my friends that I had joined Bay Area Parent as the new Calendar Editor, I got a pretty uniform response: “That’s perfect for you!”

Not only did it fit nicely into my already fairly busy life raising two young children, but it also pulled together my feelings about community, my love of minute details and my need to organize things into a neat list.

When I was growing up in the South Bay, it was a sleepy collection of towns. I left for college and came back in the early ‘90s to a bustling, diverse area growing faster than anyone ever imagined.

I spent eight years working in the high-tech industry before switching careers and joining a non-profit arts organization, which is where I first began to appreciate the value of being an active member of the community. That perspective was brought into clearer focus when my husband and I started our family.

As I raised my toddler son, I realized that all the things I wanted him to know couldn’t be found just in our home or our family. I needed to be involved in the community, both to expose my children to the larger world and to make my mark on it.

Counting on Bay Area Parent

After my daughter was born, I left the workplace to become a stay-at-home mom. For the past four years, I have involved myself with family activities and volunteer work, including starting an award-winning intergenerational program that pairs preschoolers and seniors.

Throughout that time, I have relied on Bay Area Parent as a comprehensive and important resource. I used it to find my children’s preschool and parent education classes. I read the articles to expand my own knowledge. And, of course, I used the calendar to find activities and events to enrich and entertain my family.

For instance, in October we plan to attend To Life: A Jewish Cultural Street Festival (page 100) to celebrate my children’s Jewish heritage. Though I think it’s important to teach them about their Jewish and Irish roots, I think it’s equally important that they learn about the many other cultures represented in Silicon Valley.

So we will try to go to the Multi-Cultural Celebration in Mountain View (page 94). Of course, we will also be forced to choose among all the wonderful events in the Halloween/Harvest festival  section (see page 122). It’s an embarrassment of riches!

I feel so fortunate to live in Silicon Valley, with its exceptional variety of family activities and events, and I look forward to sharing them with Bay Area Parent readers.

And if anyone is interested in how my first month on the job went, here’s my answer:  “I love it – it’s perfect for me!”