Amie Trovada-Pavone laughs at the puzzled look on her neighbors' faces when they stop by her Southlake home and she tells them she doesn't have time to go out for lunch.

"They don't realize I work at home," she says. As the 35-year-old owner of PromoWorx, a successful promotional marketing firm and apparel manufacturer, her day starts at 7 a.m. when she fixes breakfast for her three kids while making business calls to China.

The juggling continues all day – she sketches designs while the kids eat in the kitchen, she uses the computer while the kids play on the Xbox and she confers on the PDA during her daughter's gymnastics class.

Ms. Trovada-Pavone, who is separated, doesn't mind all the multitasking because she gets to spend time with her kids.

She is part of a growing trend of "mompreneurs," or women who stay at home running a company while raising their kids. Fueled in part by the Internet, a more experienced female work force and child-care issues, mom-managed businesses seem to have exploded in the last five years

A mom running a business is a natural fit, says Ellen Parlapiano, the Scarsdale, N.Y.-based co-author of Mompreneurs: A Mother's Step-by-Step Guide to Work-at-Home Success (Perigee, $13) and founder of www.mompreneursonline.com.

"If you think about it, running a business is a lot like running a family," says Ms. Parlapiano, who fields as many as 40,000 requests a month from women looking for tips. "You have to be organized and patient and disciplined and juggle a lot of balls at once. Mothers do this every day."

Add to the mix that some of these women had successful careers pre-kid, and it's no wonder that more women are setting up shop at home.

"Women today have the skills, the education and the experience in the workplace," Ms. Parlapiano says.

The Internet has contributed to this trend, not only by offering business support services a few keystrokes away, but also by allowing moms to communicate with clients from home without the appearance of being at home.

And the Internet has helped level the playing field.

"You can have an appearance of a large business when you're really very small," says Gwen Richtermeyer, director of research at the Center for Women's Business Research, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

From the time she was little, Marilyn Kaufman knew she would be an educator. She fulfilled that dream by becoming a teacher and a principal.

She decided to stay home after the second of her three children was born. She also wanted to be there for her oldest, Michelle, who has severe learning disabilities.

Ms. Kaufman's husband, Aaron, a municipal judge in Dallas, supported her decision. But she still wanted to make a difference in kids' lives.

During her son Bobby's senior year at St. Mark's School of Texas, she heard from parents who wished they had help navigating the college application process. (She helped Bobby successfully apply to Brown University.)

Friends began asking her for free advice. Then, when friends of friends sought her out, she started College Admission Consultants to advise students.

She also partnered with two other moms to form DreamMakers 4U, a company that creates college preparation tools. DreamMakers' first product, the Ultimate College Planning Calendar, for students grades 9-12, came out in January and is being sold at some local Borders stores and online.

Ms. Kaufman, 53, has a home office but finds herself working in all rooms of her house.

"I got a call from a big retail store in the Midwest while I was emptying dishes out of the dishwasher," says Ms. Kaufman. But that's what I love about being able to do this. I've never missed one of my children's games."

Debra Mars, 49, didn't set out to run a home-based business.

But not long after 9/11, the divorced Dallas mother of two found herself crying in her kitchen. The country was in shock, and people were canceling contracts with her company, Gifted by Dezyn, which creates promotional gifts.

"I was constantly exhausted," she says. "I wasn't doing anything well. I was late for everything – late for my son's baseball games, late for my daughter's ballet. I was saying, 'God, I can't continue this way. You have to show me what to do.' "

One day in October 2001, she fussed at her daughter, Zoe, to get ready for ballet. Ms. Mars was so stressed she didn't know Zoe had hit her head the night before and was now having a seizure. She rushed Zoe to the hospital and two months later moved her business home.

"I had to come home to keep my kids' lives together," Ms. Mars says.

Today, her sewing machine, where she prototypes her designs, sits in her kitchen. Her laundry room – which she calls her creative center – overflows with craft and scrapbooking supplies. She has four computers and a television in her home office.

In this seemingly chaotic mix, Ms. Mars has found balance. She sets aside time for reflection and exercise. She's active in her children's schools. She's even gotten pickier about which projects she will accept.

"I try to work in areas now that bring me joy and nurture me," Ms. Mars says as she packs 70 backpacks for a Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport program that honors "good kids."

Just an hour before an airport representative is to arrive, she and her assistant listen to gospel music as their hands fly over the task. Ms. Mars doesn't break stride when a parent calls about plans for her son's senior prom at Greenhill School in Addison.

"To work at home, you have to have discipline and you have to believe in yourself," she says. "And sometimes it's scary when I think that every penny I make is because of my own hustle. But I feel very empowered that I am able to support my children and bring some joy into other people's lives."

E-mail nchurnin@dallasnews.com