Yahoo! PR Director Terra Carmichael makes me tired. She has 19-month-old twins boys. She writes a clever mommy blog. She commutes two-plus hours a day. She works (nearly) full time. And somewhere in there, she's finding the time to mind her new online baby store, FlyingPeas.

When she handled public relations for Yahoo! Small Business, she watched thousands of individual merchants launch online stores as side projects to their day jobs, and that got her thinking. "They were seeing wild success selling everything from singing garden gnomes to fridge magnets, processing orders after dinner," she says. "I decided this was something I'd like to do eventually. I've always wanted to have my own store but never wanted to leave Yahoo! to do it. This seemed a perfect hybrid."

After her twins arrived, this hip mama discovered the vast majority of baby boy gear came in a soft powder blue, devoid of attitude or personality. "Whenever I rarely came across products that were both high-quality and hip, I was ecstatic. So, I decided to take it upon myself not only to find these products, but to let the world know about them… and buy them," she explains.

A month after launching FlyingPeas, Terra is already on a first-name basis with her UPS man. Merchandise includes skull and retro robot baby blankets, sassy baby duds, polka-dotted piggy banks, personalized books and art, mommy jewelry, chic baby furniture, and stuffed animals with attitude. You'll see from her customer showcase page that I'm a big fan. Hosted on the Yahoo! Store platform and built by Yahoo! partner Solid Cactus, FlyingPeas now eats up Terra's little remaining spare time (when she's not scraping mac'n'cheese and veggie burgers off the floor). She's come a long way from the girl who didn't know what web hosting was.

Perhaps the best gravy is the connection Terra's making with customers, particularly those reading her blog. "One woman confessed she'd spent about an hour reading before starting her shopping spree.” A few people even emailed with healthy thoughts when they read that Terra's son was in the hospital with pneumonia last month. “Dealing with the customers (so far!) has been so rewarding and encouraging. Even though I haven’t sat on my couch to watch TV in weeks and my mail/bills pile is reaching an all-time high, it’s exactly how I’d hoped it would be.”

When I first started at Yahoo! in 2000, the only mothers around here were those who didn't return from maternity leave. Today, we're a fast-growing demographic, making the crazy balancing act work. And, in Terra's case, doing it enviably well.

Nicki Dugan
Editor, Yodel Anecdotal