There are so many different ways to do this: work and motherhood (like they’re mutually exclusive).

You can work full-time in an office wearing cute shoes and the kind of outfits I wear about once a month (or less) when I have to appear credible in person.

You can start your own e-commerce site and work in sweats (or less) when your kids are napping.

You can job share, freelance or negotiate a compressed workweek. You can, like one friend of mine, leave your career in marketing to start an in-home daycare service and then become an online mortgage broker while making extra money selling stuff on eBay and writing a mommy blog.

There are options.

In this column, we’ll talk about the options and the issues we all face as moms. Making the most of maternity leave. Returning to work after baby without losing your mind. Negotiating your ideal schedule. (Yes, it can be done.) Finding back-up childcare during school vacations. Assessing your childcare choices when kid number two arrives.

The goal? To offer a handful of great tips each month that make life as a working mom a little bit easier.

We call this column Brown Bag because it’s meant to be instructional, helpful. Covering the kind of topics you’d like to hear someone discuss during your lunch break.

Of course none of us has had an actual lunch break since before we were moms, and even if we did—we’re more likely to have packed our kids’ lunches than our own. Yet brown bag feels right. Slightly crumpled but cheerfully on the go, it’s an apt image for life these days.

So send me your questions, comments, and challenges. Interested in a certain topic? Let me know. This is your forum. I’ll do the research and share what I find.