When Raji showed this video to her mom, she said she felt like it was the first time she’d revealed the ‘weird’ side of herself to someone other than me (and your Auntie Shantha.) And somehow, I find that difficult to believe. It seems impossible to me that Raji’s mother–or anyone else who’s ever met your Raji Aunty–wasn’t already entirely in the know about her weird side. And by weird, what I mean is that she’s an artist; someone who sees possibility in everything, potential in the mundane, ordinary objects waiting to take the shape of something beautiful. I mean, a dreamer....

Stephen is your grandpa/my dad’s first cousin. He lives in LA with his gorgeous and cool architect wife Juliet, and his kitty Spice Boy (not to be confused with David Beckham.) The youngest son of my lovely great Auntie Cecily, Stephen is considered by many of the members of your mommy’s side of the fam to be an extraordinary intellect and have a thing for a good watch. Recently, I learned that Stephen mooned your granny once from a passing car (apparently as a sign of great affection and respect.) He was also photographed in the front row of the...

“Leora’s coming” would generate a ripple of excitement for my brother and I when we were young and our Granny Jean would share the news. We were obsessed with our Boston cousins when we were little (particularly me) and as Leora was the oldest of the three girls she was the most revered. The daughter of our beloved Uncle Ronnie from America (we were living in South Africa at the time and, believe it or not, had another Uncle Ronnie living in Johannesberg), Leora to me was the coolest person in town. She sent little cards in the mail with stickers on them (“Lonelle is...

Daniel is a New Yorker, born and bred. He’s also our cousin–by marriage–to the shining light that is our beautiful Leora, and dad to the lovely, bright, and vivacious next gen of cousins, Natasha and Mikayla. We first met about 15 or 20 years ago when Daniel and Leora were both agents at ICM (or was it William Morris?) I guess there must have been a romantic connection, but I didn’t really know anything about it until a few years later when I went to New York to stay with Leora and realized that Daniel was around a bit too often to be just a...

I love my friends; this video lesson just exemplifies the talent powerhouse in my friendship circle. Aside from her good eye and manifold talents: Hilary is seriously one of the most amazing people I know–possibly of all time. She’s beautiful and super smart, funny and cool (in a dorky way, but that’s cool right now)–but most importantly, She. Totally. Gets. It. Together, we’ve been the sophisticated city savvy women out on the town–and we’ve also been those dumb girls who find each other so insanely funny that we’ve gone into uncontrollable fits in public (at the office, in fact) and had to go to the...

Little Aleeya is one of the reasons you’re here, Sebastian. Without many close friends with children, we didn’t actually know what kids were really about. And when we crossed paths with kids in public, their parents always seemed to be juggling them, they had lots of snot running down their faces, and they always seemed to want something. “Mommy can I have this cereal?”, “Dad, I wanna go to Wally World” etc. So as you can imagine–your father and I were undecided fora long time. Then we met Aleeya. She had the sweetest little voice and was exceedingly polite and...

Amber and I are old girls. That is to say, former Trafalgarites. While we both went to Traf at the same time, Amber was in a younger grade so we didn’t officially meet until a few years ago when she decided to have a ‘big couture blow out moving sale’ and I convinced your dad it was worth the drive to Whitby. It was worth the drive, I can honestly say that Mark and I hadn’t laughed that hard in yonks. We sat in Amber and Jonathan’s old living room, surrounded by Mogwai and Gizmo (their adorable Yorkies) and actually just...

Andrea is second year pre-med now, but I first met her when she was about your age. In fact, I used to babysit her. No kidding. SHE’S LEARNING HOW TO PERFORM SURGERY AND I USED TO CHANGE HER DIAPERS. This makes your mommy feel really old, Sebastian. However, it’s also really interesting to think that I learned how to change nappies 20 years ago and haven’t changed one since then until you came along. I think that’s more than enough nappies for one person if you ask me and looking back, I have a few great stories about Andrea. The first is...

Cj and I met just last year. He had recently been assigned as the new associate editor at the magazine and I was desperate for him to be really good at his job. It was April of 2014 and four months before your birthday, Sebastian. And somehow, I had to put out issue 7. Having never had a baby before, but plenty experience at a magazine, I figured the best way to ensure that this would be possible was by leveraging the talents of my team, so I was really hoping that the new associate editor–a role I rely upon heavily even...

I’ve had a lot of sisters in my life: great friends who were everything to me, women that I could talk to about anything, girls I did everything with but live under the same roof. But thanks to my mom, for whom two were plenty, I never had an honest-to-goodness real life sister. Until now. While Yael and I are not related by blood–she’s your Uncle Brett’s wife and the mother of my one and only niece and I love her like she was my actual real life sister. In reality, she and I couldn’t be more different. She’s...

Sebastian and I actually met Erika together at our Lullabies and Lap-rhymes class: she was your first teacher. It was also the first time we’d ventured out alone into the outside world together and we were a bit nervous about it, but anxiety aside, one Tuesday at about 12pm, we packed up 20 nappies (because you never know, I certainly didn’t) and several changes of clothes along with all the other accoutrements, and set out into the crisp sunshine (for it was still warm in mid-September this year.) I hoped the neighbours wouldn’t think I was torturing you because...

I’m so excited to write this entry. Hilleroo and I met for the first time at 7 West. A sort of hippie-type all-night bring-your-own-vegan 20-page-menu sort of joint just south of Bloor. Hill reached out to me because we had a friend in common, were both involved in the arts, and *most importantly, the reason it’s always okay to reach out to a total stranger* we are both ‘old girls’ of Trafalgar Castle, the private all-girl high school we attended in very different eras. Off the top of my head, I’d estimate that Hill graduated a  full decade after...

I haven’t actually known Ariel that long. In fact, it hasn’t even been a whole year since she was born, but she’s already one of the shining lights in my life. The first born child of my favourite brother and awesome sister-in-law, Ariel (born a full two and a half months ahead of you, Sebastian) is the beloved first baby of the new generation of our family. Thank goodness she was born first. For a few reasons really. First, it gave your dad and I a chance to focus on the little person that she was. To get to...

The exact circumstances of the first meeting between Candace and I totally escape me. My memory is terrible at the best of times and, now that I get to party all night with you, Sebastian, my glorious little non-sleeper, we shall probably look back on these as ‘the happy-foggy years’. Maybe Candace remembers, so we’ll ask her someday–but introductions aside, Candace and I have known each other for many years now and funny thing: this is actually our 4th go round of friendship. The first time we were friends was in early high school when we both attended O’Neill Collegiate. I lived...

Pammy and I go way back, but we came together in the weirdest way. We met at a Procter & Gamble popup salon: I needed my roots done and was walking over to Mark’s old office at Yonge and Bloor, when I found myself outside a salon that had sprung up overnight and was giving hair colour as a promotion. I’ve always had trouble resisting a crazy deal (and maybe I was feeling more adventurous than usual) so I stepped inside the salon in desperate need (these were the days before ombre was a thing) and met my hair’s saviour: Pam. About an hour...

As you might guess: Uncle Brett and I have been best friends since I was 2 and a half. Essentially, we’ve known each other since the day he was born. Prior to that day, I believe I was a happy only child: living the good life, comfortably spoiled with doting parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Then Mr. Brett decided to make an appearance on the scene. I pretty much liked him from the beginning (although he had this defence mechanism where he’d scream this seriously loud, high pitched scream if I was bugging him too much–it was like those crazy African bugs...

  Sierra is an awesome sport and an amazing human that I met relatively recently on this journey. When I was pregnant with you I began to frequent Facebook’s “mommy groups”, which ranged from informative to eye-opening to downright deranged. I hadn’t quite realized what I was getting into until I joined these secret groups and first saw the very dark, frightening underbelly of mommyhood. The only thing I had in common with many of these other mommies was that we had a baby due in July. That was it. And boy, let me tell you: there were entire...

Christa and I met at the old Four Seasons tearoom…or was it the lobby at One King West? Obviously, my memory of the exact location is blurred, but I remember Christa vibrantly. The publishers of my magazine had asked her to come in for an interview. She had a degree in journalism and a history of working in unrelated jobs. She was from Florida, spoke fluent German, was into the culinary arts, and was at once shy and hot-headed, funny and sweet. She, Joe and I made an awesome team. We spent countless days and nights debating the appropriate usage...

I know Joanne from high school and over the years we’ve stayed in touch through Facebook. She was part of the ‘Joanne, Joanne, Alex, and Amanda’ posse–they were all amazing and funny girls, awesome to hang out with. It’s sort of weird thinking back to this time, because sometimes I still feel like a high schooler. Often, in fact. I notice it most when I hang out with people who have teenaged kids, as I gravitate towards their humour, language, goss. It’s true, I’m the first one to abandon the adult room, preferring to play video games, talk about skateboarding,...