Lonelle Selbo, Author at Urban Mommies

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Lonelle Selbo

Lonelle spent the past 15 years hanging out on the masthead of some cool fashion and lifestyle magazines across Canada—before taking the leap into parenthood, at which point swaggy parties and fashion shows lost their lustre next to her golden-haired son. Immersing herself into a new scene, as the Editor-in-Chief of UrbanMommies, before moving on to launch her own country living + parenting magazine 'Life Au Lait', she loves putting her ear to the ground and listening to the rumble of mom voices. In between Oprah and bonbons, she also runs a boutique design and branding agency (AuLait Media) working with mom-driven businesses to help bring their big vision to life.

This Cocktail Will Make Your Summer

eat, EAT, entertain, self By Lonelle Selbo July 3, 2019 1 Comment

Two summers…actually, three summers ago (my sense of chronology is on permanent mom mode), I had an amazing ‘mobile’ herb garden that we planted and grew in a bunch of mismatched pots on our deck. When we moved in to our first home, our tiny garden was totally professionally landscaped and we didn’t dare touch it, so this little collection of herbs was our attempt to curate and craft something of our very own in the backyard. Because I am a terribly undomestic goddess, I mostly just admired the herbs from afar (my husband trained as a chef in his twenties, so he’s in charge of the kitchen), until one day I decided to get experimental and leverage my love of cocktails to create a truly beautiful and very simple recipe.

Healthy Spring Quinoa Bowls

EAT, eat, FAM, family meals, grow, health, holidays, LIVE, lunches, nourish, pregnancy, self By Lonelle Selbo May 21, 2019 No Comments

Diala’s Kitchen is one of my favourite new food blog obsessions and after getting gluttonous on the (terrible, curse on whoever invented this) “Eat What You Want Day” with a bowl of popcorn to carry me through from breakfast to lunch, an inhaled curry pad thai for dinner, and half a huge bag of dark choc almonds to follow—let’s just say that I woke up this morning hungover, overcome with guilt, and looking to redeem myself.

Diala to the rescue with a dish that’s fresh, healthy, totally yummy, and makes me feel like I might not have to wear a T-shirt over my swimsuit during baby swimming lessons this summer.

Eat, After Your Heart’s Content

books By Lonelle Selbo September 19, 2017 No Comments

I don’t remember a time when I had a good relationship with food. Even when I was little, I remember being embarrassed by the fact that I was hungry and liked foods other kids turned their noses up at, spinach et al.

When my now threenager had just turned one and was starting to really get into food, I made an appointment for us to see a child nutritionist. “Is he a picky eater?” she asked in her office. “Oh, he’s eating perfectly,” I told her. “He eats avocado and salmon, eggs….you name it, all the good stuff.” I paused to answer the question on her lips. “We’re here because I have never had a good relationship with food. I know that the implications of this have been far reaching in my life—and I want to know what I need to do to make sure it doesn’t happen to him.” I realized then that nutritionists aren’t into psychological counseling and that I needed to learn my own coping mechanisms that I could implement into my life and pass on to my child.

Father’s Day Gift Ideas – Skin Care Because You Care

beauty By Lonelle Selbo June 17, 2017 1 Comment

On the surface, Father’s Day seems like the man version of Mother’s Day, but it’s absolutely not. Dads aren’t the opposite of moms at all, they’re a totally different animal, so when their big day arrives, we have to consider them in a totally different way.

Fred Penner: Right Here and Right Now

grow, LIVE By Lonelle Selbo May 24, 2017 No Comments

At 70, Fred Penner’s beautiful hands strum his guitar like it’s an extension of his fingers. The twinkling eyes we remember shine out from an older, but no less appealing face, framed with the most welcoming smile—a smile that five decades of kids have loved and trusted.

Finally, the Little Black Shoe is here. Moms, take note.

GEAR, style By Lonelle Selbo August 15, 2016 No Comments

Every mom knows the importance of a perfect LBD. It’s the one thing in your closet you can count on to make you feel comfortable and pretty at once, transforming you from the frazzled mom who just spent the morning scrubbing poo off of a pink stuffed elephant, into an elegant, got-it-together emblem of supreme womanhood. And if you have a little black dress that goes from the playground to date night—even better.

To the woman who put an anti-abortion flyer through my mail slot this morning.

grow, LIVE By Lonelle Selbo July 31, 2016 No Comments

My toddler and I were playing on the floor just inside the door. We saw you through the glass window above the knocker and thought you saw us too. I smiled and you turned away so quickly, I guessed you were in a reverie or on the clock. Perhaps the sunlight was too strong outside, I thought.

My son was enthralled to see a piece of paper suddenly appear through the door. He grabbed it and spent several minutes trying to return it to the other side, but the protective shutter wouldn’t allow it to flap both ways. Returning to the shoe mountain he had been working on, the flyer sat forgotten on the slot ledge.

5 Reasons I Don’t Celebrate National Lipstick Day

grow, laugh, LIVE By Lonelle Selbo July 29, 2016 No Comments

So it’s National Lipstick Day, which really just means that some of the style magazines I follow on Facebook are posting pics of beautiful models with gorgeous lips done up in the decadent shades of the summer. When suddenly I realized that I haven’t worn lipstick for a really, really long time. And here’s why…

Lipstick doesn’t go with baby barf

I figure, if I don’t have time to wash chunks of baby food out of my hair, and if, let’s be honest, I haven’t even noticed that there’s a poo smudge on my forearm, I probably don’t have the wherewithal to apply lipstick on my mouth to look more beautiful.

Look for helpers, Little One: A Love Story

GEAR, style By Lonelle Selbo June 22, 2016 31 Comments

Today we were watching Freebirds, a movie about a pair of turkeys who travel back in time to eradicate Thanksgiving. My almost-two-year-old was captivated; he’s really into bird movies. Anyway, *spoiler alert* at the end of the film a tribe of early turkeys from the 1600s mourn the loss of their great leader by flapping their wings forward in a circular motion to create a swirling tribute of scattered feathers, spiraling up into the air. It’s a moving moment in the film and I looked down at my sweet son and saw that he was emulating their actions with his arms, slowly windmilling in a beautiful, almost spiritual show of empathy.

I was moved. It dawned on me that I thought of him as a baby still, incapable of understanding this subtle show of sadness and love. It’s true, his day-to-day temperament veers sharply from terrible toddler displays of frustration to sheer unadulterated joy, but this…this was something else.

Mom’s Away: How to be a Better Mom by Travelling Solo

eat, grow, LIVE, nourish, play, rest By Lonelle Selbo June 11, 2016 3 Comments

It happens at some point for every mom and it was happening for me today, one and a half months before he would turn the big oh-two: the first trip away from my baby.

I’m a journalist and editor, so it’s been easy to find reasons to work from home over the past few years, scrambling to squeeze every workable second out of naps, evenings, and weekends—but when a press trip came up for Ann Arbor and my first choice writer couldn’t make the dates, I considered whether it was perhaps time to get back into the game and go myself—a mom’s getaway.