MAMALU PERMANENTLY CLOSED IN 2009.

Mamalu in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is a great place to spend a cold or rainy day with babies and preschoolers, and the best part is that you can stay as long as you like for just $5 per child. Located across the street from McCarren Park, it's very convenient to get to with a car, I always find parking right outside. You can also get there fairly easily on the L or G train but expect a few blocks of a walk when you get off the train.

The space is large and airy and nicely designed with murals and mobiles and divided in two with the cafe in front and the play area in back. What I like about the play area is that it doesn't have a lot of toys which lets kids run around and explore without feeling overwhelmed and the toys they have are kept clean and in good shape. One wall of the play space is filled with a huge blackboard which for some is great fun, but can also present a bit of a challenge for mouthy little toddlers who like to eat chalk though its easy enough to position yourself away from the chalk stash.

One of the NYC sites I love to read is NewYorkology. Amy is the one who reminds me to post about things like the Vintage Buses and Trains. Now she's added a sweets columnist to keep her readers abreast of all things sweet and tasty in New York. Um...yum.

Nichelle Stephens, who normally writes for Cupcakes Take the Cake with my friend Rachel, wrote up a new ice cream joint in Boerum Hill called Blue Marble. Blue Marble Ice Cream is organic and made from grass-fed cows from the Hudson Valley. It sounds yummy and the store has wi-fi and a small play area for kids. Who said it was hard to be a locavore!

I'm very happy to announce the winner of the Puj Go Sling Giveaway...

If you knew Nina, you'd like her as much as I do. She's an old school New Yorker who grew up with an uptown dad and a downtown mom and seems to know every crack and trick of this city. Now she's learning it all over again as a new mom.

Cartoonist and Illustrator David Heatley was commissioned to do a piece for The New Yorker, but it didn't make the final cut. In his cartoon Heatley points out some of our favorite things about Queens, like the Queens Farm Museum and the Jackson Heights Halloween Parade. His basic answer: No, it's not as cool as Brooklyn (and he's kinda glad), but it's great for families. [via Jackson Heights Blog]

We have hundreds of great articles in our archives and we'll be plucking out the best to share every week, but you can also search our archives using the search feature in the upper right corner of the page or click on some of the category links in the left sidebar.

Here's a different activity. Ever been to The Skyscraper Museum

Four years ago, when my little one was a baby, slings were not as popular as they are today. They were still a little on the "alternative" side, as in, the people that I work with would say, "Remember when you came in to the office with your baby in that sling?" the way one might say, "Remember the time you shaved your hair into a mohawk and stretched your earlobes until you could poke a hot dog through the hole?" Like it kind of scared them, I think.

But I loved my sling so much. I had one of the first simple tube slings, just a ring of fabric, actually fleece, that you just slipped on and put the baby in. You didn't have to adjust it or anything. That sling was so great and they were so hard to find, my friend and I actually contemplated starting a business making and selling them ourselves.

Why am I such a crazy sling devotee? Let me count the ways...

I like to help out in my son's Pre-K classroom when I can. This morning some of the kids were doing a really cute little craft project that I had never seen before. Apparently if you take those potato starch packing peanuts and wet them, they dissolve just enough that they can stick together. So simple!

Kids can then use them to build anything their imagination thinks of and no fasteners are needed, which is great for toddlers and preschoolers and just plain cool for older kids.