WINDSOR, Ont. (CP) - Everybody likes to think they have the cutest baby, but a Canadian woman now has extra bragging rights after her eight-month-old daughter won the "Live with Regis and Kelly" Beautiful Baby Search on Friday.
Melody Dancel's baby, Cameron, beat more than 150,000 entries on the popular American morning show's website. Toronto toddler Emily Saniga also made the top five.
The finalists were flown to New York with their parents to appear on the show.
"Being on there, you see yourself on the monitor, it is absolutely surreal," Dancel said.
"You're nervous, you're excited, you don't quite know what to expect. We were still in shock."
Dancel entered the contest 90 minutes before the deadline with a photo she took at a wedding show in Windsor, Ont.
The woman from Tecumseh, Ont., and her husband Carl-Richard Dancel, who currently live in Warren, Mich., had only a few hours to pack and fly to New York.
Now their baby is going to be on the cover of the summer issue of Parenting magazine, and have US$5,000 put towards her college fund. Saniga won $1,000, and her photo will also be in the magazine.
"Right before we went on stage I was talking to one of the other moms, and I was saying this has just been so worth it, this whole experience has been amazing," Dancel said. "We're going to remember this for the rest of our lives."
Dancel said one of her favourite parts of the experience was the photo shoot for Parenting magazine.
"That was just amazing. It's like what you see in the movies - a big white studio loft. They were showing us the pictures directly from the digital camera to the big screen, and as soon as I saw them I just started crying. The pictures really showed how beautiful she is."
Dancel is trying to stay grounded through the whole experience. At eight months old, Cameron isn't even aware she's won anything.
"At the end of the day I still have to change her poopy diaper and feed her," Dancel said. "She's still the same."
Dancel is still in the process of filing the papers for Canadian citizenship for Cameron.
As for a career in modelling, Dancel said she's not going to push it right now.
Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press
Melody Dancel's baby, Cameron, beat more than 150,000 entries on the popular American morning show's website. Toronto toddler Emily Saniga also made the top five.
The finalists were flown to New York with their parents to appear on the show.
"Being on there, you see yourself on the monitor, it is absolutely surreal," Dancel said.
"You're nervous, you're excited, you don't quite know what to expect. We were still in shock."
Dancel entered the contest 90 minutes before the deadline with a photo she took at a wedding show in Windsor, Ont.
The woman from Tecumseh, Ont., and her husband Carl-Richard Dancel, who currently live in Warren, Mich., had only a few hours to pack and fly to New York.
Now their baby is going to be on the cover of the summer issue of Parenting magazine, and have US$5,000 put towards her college fund. Saniga won $1,000, and her photo will also be in the magazine.
"Right before we went on stage I was talking to one of the other moms, and I was saying this has just been so worth it, this whole experience has been amazing," Dancel said. "We're going to remember this for the rest of our lives."
Dancel said one of her favourite parts of the experience was the photo shoot for Parenting magazine.
"That was just amazing. It's like what you see in the movies - a big white studio loft. They were showing us the pictures directly from the digital camera to the big screen, and as soon as I saw them I just started crying. The pictures really showed how beautiful she is."
Dancel is trying to stay grounded through the whole experience. At eight months old, Cameron isn't even aware she's won anything.
"At the end of the day I still have to change her poopy diaper and feed her," Dancel said. "She's still the same."
Dancel is still in the process of filing the papers for Canadian citizenship for Cameron.
As for a career in modelling, Dancel said she's not going to push it right now.
Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press