It's Dilovely

Dear Rob Ford, When you were elected as mayor of Canada’s largest city, all my Torontonian friends were aghast. They never thought you’d make it in. Having lived in Toronto for a couple years myself, I had to agree that you seemed pretty incongruous: Toronto is, after all, known for its diverse, savvy, cosmopolitan character, […]

Do you ever have those times when you read or see something alarming and think, Shit, this is it. We are GOING DOWN FOR SURE THIS TIME. Humans are SCREWED. I have thought this many times. When I was a kid in the ’80s, raised (and homeschooled) by liberal activist parents, I was pretty well-versed […]

Let’s take a walk! What could be more invigorating, more wholesome, more beneficial for body and soul? I can take the kids, we can all get some fresh air, and the baby can have a nice lung-cleansing nap. On Wednesday I took my children for a walk around the neighbourhood. We have been graciously handed […]

It’s November 30th, the last day of National Blog Posting Month, 2012! Whew. What a relief. For real. Like last year at this time, I am proud to say that I did it! But with slightly less integrity than in 2011. 30 blog posts One per day (though this was where I cheated. I tweaked […]

I think I may have sounded, in yesterday’s post, like life with my kids is idyllic and wonderful and effortless. I was glad to have the writing to focus me on the parts I love about this parenting gig, because yesterday was actually a rather difficult parenting day. How is it okay that the most […]

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? When I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina. After that, I wanted to be a novelist. It didn’t occur to me to want to be a teacher until later. As a homeschooling kid, I didn’t even have teachers other […]

I’m always amazed when parents (-to-be) are able to agree on the name of their impending child many months ahead of time. I know two expectant couples, both due to have daughters in August, who had names ready (boy and girl options) even before they knew the sex of their baby. They make it seem so […]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper Langevin Building 80 Wellington Street Ottawa ON K1A 0A6 Mr. Harper: As a polite Canadian, I’d like to be able to write a proper, respectful salutation; unfortunately, I have seen no evidence of respectful governance to warrant one. This is my second open letter to you. You obviously did not heed […]

Dear New Neighbours, I just wanted to let you know what a privilege it is to share our neighbourhood with you. As your facing neighbours, we feel especially lucky. When you first moved in a few weeks ago, we though, Hurray! These kids will help keep us young! And you wasted no time in seeing […]

I’m pretty grumpy. A) I’ve just spent the last hour-and-a-half trying everything I can think of to get my toddler to sleep (I guess I should be glad he usually goes to bed without incident, but we didn’t get to that stage without a fair bit of work); B) I was trying to write a […]