About Nadine Silverthorne
Nadine Silverthorne’s love of journaling began in Grade One with the entry, “I am the greatest dancer!” Two babies (and countless diaper changes) later, she has found her home away from home as editor of SweetMama. Don’t miss her humorous bi-weekly accounts of the joys and pains of working while raising them fabulous.
The Very Best of SweetMama 2009
silver spoons canada
(Dec.30.09)
Looking back over this year, I get excited when I see all the products we helped introduce to Canadian moms, all the business we helped launch and all the really inventive ideas that came out of a tough year. Here are my five favourite National stories of 2009. (Yes, it was extremely hard to narrow it down.)
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Tyke Threads
My son likes to dress like his dad (think of that what you will) and most clothes for boys are laden with cheesy trucks, licensed characters and other embellishments I could do without. Thankfully Grace at TykeThreads.com launched a brilliant online store that caters to boys fashions alone. Since running the story we've become online friends -- that's one of the sweetest perks to this job: meeting smart women!
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SweetMamas We Love
I wanted to find a way to highlight the amazing things that moms across Canada are doing. So I came up with the idea to highlight a different SweetMama each week and bring her stories of balancing me-time and motherhood to all of you. We've had famous moms and blogging moms and entrepreneurial moms. Their experiences are all different, but the struggle to find balance resonates throughout.
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Rebecca Eckler's Presents Post
It's been a tough year -- I felt the recession in my own house. So Rebecca Eckler's post on the amount (and cost) of birthday presents her daughter received on her birthday made me a bit sore. But that's part of Rebecca's charm, she documents her life as it is. It may not be my life or your life, but it's fun peeking into hers. (Plus reading the comments on that post is fun.)
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Top 5: Where the Wild Things Are
When Spike Jonze's incredible film was to be released this past October, Assistant Editor Jes Watson and I tried to envision how we could turn what we loved about Maurice Sendak's novel into a shopping story. Finding a forest for a child's room, or Max's famous wolf suit was a fun afternoon of playing on Etsy.com.
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Back-to-School Lunch Ideas
My tech whiz (and left arm) Danielle Barranca and I had a blast heading to nutrition expert Liane Phillipson-Webb's house to shoot a video on creative lunch ideas. (The best part was eating Liane's creations afterwards.) We'll be bringing you more SweetTV videos next year, so stay tuned!
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I love what I do. Actually, I love what WE do. I want to take a moment to thank all the wonderful people that made SweetMama sweet in 2009.
- In Vancouver: Laura Grady and Catherine Dunwoody.
- In Calgary: Shan Roth, Michaelle LeManne and Christina Frangou.
- In Montreal: Lauren Cracower-Manitt.
- In Toronto: Heather Hudson, Sam Yaffe, The Book Fairy, Carly Cooper, Catalina Margulis and the one-of-a-kind Rebecca Eckler. Oh! And Heather Camlot, who took on the task of editing MySweetBaby with grace and skill.
- My incredible right hand, Ashley Bennion, who makes sure I can breathe on Wednesdays by handling my What's Happening and Top 5 columns and the sparkly, talented rings on my right hand fingers: Jes Watson and Samantha Speisman.
- My fantastic -- and very funny -- left hand, Danielle Barranca -- who programs the site and the newsletters and makes sure everything is pretty.
- In our marketing department: Lily Varga our Creative Manager, who designs our creative assets and keeps everything sweet. Lori Mastronardi, our Copywriter, for always having a pun or some word nerd advice. Sari Little for helping with contests and everything in between. Elise Tremblay for her ideas, her cupcakes, her smile and her homemade feather hairbands!
- My sister-brains, Ashleigh McKenna and Sarah Rogers, who help me make decisions and cover my butt when I'm mom-brained or home with sick kids.
- Stephania Varalli and Chantel Simmons, who were the most fun bosses to work for and whom I've learned such a great deal from.
- Our hard-working Sales Team members (particularly taskmaster Megan Shay for our MySweetBaby and Potty Tales connection) and Brett Plazcek for keeping our team meetings on track.
- Our office manager extraordinaire -- Monica Lapa -- the smiling face at the front, the woman who puts up with an office full of big babies and makes Pam on The Office look second rate with her hilarious emails that remind us how to use the dishwasher and keep a fridge clean.
- The ladies at the top: Our president, Joanna Track (whose writing this year has made me a proud editor); our publisher, Lori Axelrod (who makes sure everything's running as it should) and our HR director Sari Friedman (whose office I can always pop into for a laugh or a chat).
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