Author: Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

Rebecca Cuneo Keenan is a writer who lives in Toronto with her husband and three children.

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This Is Not A Recipe: Kraft Pourables Tomato-Basil Chicken



Thanks to Kraft Pourables for sponsoring this post!

It’s a recurring theme in the conversations I have with my brother-in-law Sean who is a part-time chef and full-time dad: Where exactly do we draw the line between convenience food and healthy cooking? Because sometimes you just don’t have time to make everything from scratch, shuttle the kids to and from soccer practice, oversee the homework and get all the laundry done. Sometimes you just want to grab a bottle of store-bought salad dressing from the fridge and that’s all right.

He happened to be visiting the night I decided to crack open the new Kraft Fruit & Veg salad dressings that had been sent for this campaign. There was Berry Balsamic; Roasted Yellow Pepper, Garlic and Lime; Fire Roasted Tomato with Basil; and Garlic Parmesan with Roasted Cauliflower.

I poured a small amount of each into a small glass bowl and we took pinches of salad greens and dipped them in to taste. They all made tasty enough salad dressings, certainly, and the Kraft website is loaded with salad ideas I can’t wait to try out.  But when Sean tasted the Fire Roasted Tomato with Basil dressing he said, “Oh, that would make a great marinade.”

And thus the tomato-basil chicken seed was planted in my mind.

Here’s how to make it:

  • Put some chicken breasts in a dish and coat them with the Fire Roasted Tomato with Basil dressing. Or make your own marinade using oil and vinegar, basil and tomato paste and/or sun-dried tomatoes if you’d rather.
  •  Cover those and let them soak up all the flavour in the fridge while you prep the rest of the meal. I served the chicken with roasted sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli but whatever you have will work.
  •  Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them up into cube-ish kind of pieces and spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with oil and salt and pepper and use your clean hands to toss the sweet potatoes so everything is properly coated. Pop them in a 400° oven for a good while. Like, pull them out and toss ’em around after 20 minutes or so and then put them back in for another 10 to 15 minutes. You want them to be nice and soft inside and, ideally, a little brown and crisp on the outside.
  • Then prep your broccoli and put it in a steamer over a little water and lightly salt them. But don’t turn on the stove yet! These will only take a few minutes, so wait until everything else is just about done.
  • As long as your chicken has had 20 minutes to a few hours to marinade, you’re good to start cooking it. I used a grill pan at first to get them started but soon realized the marinade would start to burn if I left them there to cook through. So I finished them in the oven next to my sweet potatoes. They were skinless and boneless and took about 25 minutes to cook. You could also do these on the barbecue if you’re lucky enough to have one that works. (Ours is more like an art installation on the idea of outdoor cooking. You can’t actually use it to cook with anymore.)
  • The last important step is to drizzle a bit of the dressing on the plate before you place the chicken on it. Not only does this make you look all professional-style in front of your family and friends, it also makes for a very nice, saucy compliment to the marinated meat.

I have to admit, this meal was delicious. Everyone loved it, even my picky four-year-old.

This post is sponsored by Kraft. Opinions and words are still mine, of course.

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Momosphere Recap: KFC, Victoria’s Secret and more

I started this series of mom-blog news recaps two and a half years ago on this blog and never did a another one. So I can’t blame you for doubting me now when I say THEY’RE BACK!

There is just too much ridiculous gossip hard-hitting mommy blog news that speaks for itself to pass up. It’ll be just like The Daily Show! Except instead of Jon Stewart, me. And instead of TV, this blog. And instead of satire on important news stories, a quick round up of mom blogging controversies. And probably not as good. And no celebrities.

Right. So here goes.

  • KFC brought some influential bloggers to Kentucky for a Twitter party to promote their new kids’ meals (which seem to be about as healthy as you’d expect). Cecily K has a great account of what went down on Babble. Essentially, a lot of people (influential bloggers and regular people alike) began using the #kfckidsmeals hashtag to discuss KFC’s health record and ask questions about the nutritional content of the meals. Jessica Gottlieb followed up with a blog post breaking down such hard to grasp concepts as integrity and doing your job without whining.Accusations of hashtag hijacking, bullying and general mean girlness abounded. A marketer got in on the fracas with a post reminding bloggers to watch what they say or else nobody will want to work with them, chiding that if, “…you’re going to launch a protest, you ought to do so respectfully, professionally and in a classy way.” (I must have missed the part where the mom bloggers busted out the combat boots and Molotov cocktails.) Then everyone hugged and made up. No they didn’t. The same old show will be coming soon to a branded tweet up near you in the near future, to be sure.
  • Victoria’s Secret was forced to pull some racy underwear from their website this week because it was perceived they were marketing to tweens/young teens. There was a huge backlash from mom bloggers and this post by Evan Dolive went especially viral. There was a bit of, well, are they or aren’t they marketing to teens? Amanda Marcotte, writing on Slate, said everyone needed to chill out because teens are going to have sex no matter what their underwear looks like. But my favourite posts on this topic were penned by men and talk about the pressure teen girls feel to play out some oversexified version of adulthood. Because, really, anyone who is old enough to strut around in lace panties that say “I dare you,” isn’t going to want to wear them anyway.

    UPDATE: This Jezebel post will help take the righteous indignation out of your sails. Now doesn’t that feel better?

  • My own Facebook universe was plagued with what I can only call Screenshotgate when it came out that a certain group of people have been in the habit of taking screen shots of conversations happening on personal profiles and private groups. The idea is that they were somehow using these screenshots to damage a party’s reputation and perhaps cost them potential business relationships. Let the record state that I don’t know who was doing this to whom or why they were doing it. This is purely an unsubstantiated rumour that I am spreading for your own entertainment and titillation.
I now realize as I hit publish after 10pm on Good Friday why I didn’t keep this up. It’s a lot of work. So give me your feedback! Do you like it? Is it fun? Or just a rehash of stuff you already knew? Be honest, please and thank you.
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The Great Camp Adventure, Family FUNdraising for SickKids




This post is brought to you by The Canaccord Genuity Great Camp Adventure benefiting SickKids.

We all want our children to be good, generous, kind and giving. We especially want that when they’re embroiled in a protracted battle with their siblings in the middle of a six-hour car ride. But that’s another story.

We already know how important it is to role model the kind of behaviour we want to see from our children. We see how powerful that influence is when they decide to donate half their piggy bank to a good cause (or when they sound just like you when they lose their temper, whichever.) But what could be better than doing something fun and worthwhile together as a family?

This September 28, The Great Camp Adventure is a one-day, challenge-by-choice, camp-themed, FUNdraising walk for the entire family. All proceeds go to the Sick Kids Possibility Fund where they can support the hospital’s most urgent needs.

The Great Camp Adventure is designed to be a day of fun for the entire family and beyond, from babies to grannies, neighbours to coworkers. Have fun making your way along a 20km route (go as far as you like, no need to do the whole thing!) with lots of campsite-style pit stops full of snacks and activities along the way.

Register now to get your FUNdraising game on. There’s a $500 fundraising minimum for adults and $150 for children which makes this an incredibly easy way to get your whole family working together for a good cause. Have a few more questions? No worries. Head over here to fill out a request for more info.

I honestly can’t think of a better way to spend a day with my family.

This post is sponsored by The Canaccord Genuity Great Camp Adventure. Opinions and words are still mine, of course.

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Stuff I’m Digging: Goodwill

I went thrift shopping at Goodwill last weekend for the first time in a long while. Despite certain fitting room humiliations, it was a roaring success.

Anytime I’ve tried to browse a Goodwill or Value Village with the kids, it’s been a total disaster. I know people who can do this and find good stuff, but I really need to get into a thrift-store zone. It takes about ten minutes of walking around the store and figuring out a strategy before I get into a groove. Then I fall into a trance-like state, working my way down the aisles and honing in on anything with fabric that looks promising. The next move is to pull out the article (mostly tops this time because they’re easy to fit) and look at the cut and style. Finally I double check the size and brand before putting it in my basket. The whole process takes an incredible amount of focus and I simply can’t do it if I have to worry about my kids running around getting into who-knows-what.

So I left the kids at home and took a box of books I managed to convince Ed to part with to donate. I was primarily looking for shoes because I’ve been disappointed with the current trends in sandals and was hoping for something vintage and beautiful and barely worn. You never know! Women buy shoes like candy and donate them all the time.

Here’s what I wound up getting:

A selection of super-cute tops from stores like Jacob, RW&Co and Talbots.

No sandals, but these good-as-new Aldo shoes will be the perfect replacement for my favourite pre-kids heels that no longer fit.

A vintage, made in England, JAJ pyrex dish with lid.

This cute Sophie Harding print for the girls’ room came with a plastic faux-wood frame. I originally wanted to paint it white, but the hassle of painting plastic wouldn’t be worth it, so Irene and I glitter glued that baby instead.

And the grand total? Thirty-four dollars! And, get this. Goodwill also has daily sales. Shoes and handbags are half off on Thursdays, for example, and furniture and decor items are half on Saturdays. Since I was there on a Sunday, all clothes with a green tag were 75% off which meant I got a couple really nice tops for 50 cents!

By donating and shopping at Goodwill, you support their mission of providing jobs for people with barriers to employment. You also keep stuff out of the landfill, save yourself a few bucks and get to take home something more interesting than you’d find at the local mall. I’ll definitely be going back.

What’s your best thrift store find?

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A Tale of Two Dresses and a Fitting Room

Let me share a story about my trip to Goodwill yesterday. It was a phenomenal success, in the end, and I will write more about it later this week. But for now, a tale of two dresses and a fitting room.

I had this idea that I should look for a more structured, form-fitting dress. Yes, I’ve been catching up on Mad Men, why do you ask? It also so happens that the baby weight that is supposed to slide off at some point in the year and a half after giving birth has not slid off. In fact, it held on and invited an extra five pounds to join in the fun over the winter. So perhaps I’m not exactly clear on what a dress that fits me looks like.

I rummaged through the dress racks and came up with two dresses that seemed to fit the bill. One was black with some ruffle action happening at the knee-length hemline, very sexy, and the other was a pale green number with delicate embroidery that looked very pretty on the rack. I didn’t bother to check the size of either of them. I just held them up and thought, eh, maybe.

I took them both into the fitting room and started trying to pull the black dress on over my head. I ACTUALLY , LITERALLY thought the words, “If it is this hard to get the dress on over your head (which is not even your fat part, lady), then you should probably give up while you’re ahead.” And then, of course, I tugged even harder and wriggle danced my arms in until the whole dress was bunched up at my armpit level.

And there it sat. And there I stood before the full-length mirror like a giant black flower atop a pale and lumpy and (let’s face it, somewhat hairy) stem. I could hear the air escaping my over-inflated, self-esteem bubble; it sounded like a fart.

And then I tried to take the dress off.

I took hold of the fabric gathered below my armpits and pulled it back up. It would not budge. I lifted the mass of dress that was pressing down on the upper flesh of my breasts like the most useless mammogram ever and tried to ease it back up over my head. No go. I pulled forward and back, from this side and that and the dress would not move. The good news is that it was a Goodwill dress, so if I had to cut it off at least I’d be able to pay for it. The bad news is I don’t carry a pair of fabric scissors in my jeans. I thought about sticking my head out of the door and kind of hollering for help. “Do you have any scissors?” I’d call. “I just need to cut this dress off of my neck. Won’t take a minute!”

At last I took a deep breath and then exhaled, arched backward and reached both arms as far back as they could go and gripped some fabric. The dress started to slide up. Slowly and painstakingly, I was able to ease it up over my shoulders and slide my arms back out. It  was off! Hallelujah!

Then I started trying on the next dress!

Don’t worry, it was a bit loose and the colour was horrid on me. I did think to check the tags before leaving the fitting room, though. The black dress was a size 4 and the green was a 12. So there you have it, my dress size is somewhere between 4 and 12. Fine, it’s probably not a 6 either.

Has this ever happened to anyone before or am I a pioneer in stupidity? Has anyone ACTUALLY had to cut an article of clothing off of themselves before? (I seem to remember a skirt during my first postpartum experience.)

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Stuff I’m Digging: Baby Liberté Yogurt

Yogurt can be such a healthy snack for every member of the family. It can be. Unfortunately, much of what you find at the supermarket is loaded with sugar or, worse, artificial sweeteners. And if you want something suitable for babies and young kids, you have to wade through all the fat-free varieties too.

So I have long been a fan of Liberté Yogurt for us all, but particularly for my skinny, skinny kids. All varieties are made from real milk or cream, sweetened with sugar and/or fruit purées, probiotic and incredibly delicious. Mary got hit hard with a gastric virus when she was about 14 months old and I could feel how much weight she dropped just by picking her up. We were already slated for an extra check up to make sure she was gaining well and I was afraid this would mean another extra appointment I’d rather not have to make time for. So I loaded up with avocados and eggs and all kinds of filling foods at the grocery store. I also picked up some Liberté Méditerranée which is 7 to 10% milk fat.  She loved it and plumped up nicely in the end.

I was even happier, however, to learn that Liberté has come out with a special baby line. It’s very lightly sweetened with a touch of sugar and/or fruit purées and contains 5 to 6% milk fat (which is probably more reasonable for every day consumption.) It comes in 4-packs of single (or double or triple depending on your baby’s age/appetite) servings which means it’s also great to grab on the go.

Mary loved it and so did my other kids. So did I! Even the VERY lightly sweetened plain yogurt was absolutely delicious.

And, really, it’s much better for my own waistline if we don’t make having the Méditerranée yogurt in the fridge a regular thing.

But try it out for yourself! WIN five coupons for FREE Liberty Baby products. Contest closes Friday, April at 11:59pm. Canada ONLY.

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

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It Rained Down on Me

Don’t you hate it when you don’t know what you’re making for dinner?

I guess it all started when the toilet got clogged just before it was time to pick up Colum from the school bus. I didn’t have time to plunge it right away so I just left it. Sometimes you need to let it sit for a while anyway, y’know? And then it will flush.

So I got the girls bundled up and we picked up Colum and made our way back home through some frigid pre-spring arctic wind. Irene broke her own personal record by screaming and crying the entire way home, while I pulled her along by the arm and called out, “Come on, Colum! Come on, Colum! Come on, Colum!” every 30 seconds. Mary was strapped to my chest in a carrier and had wiggled free of her mittens, her little baby popsicle fists completely out of my sight.

We finally made it home, I threw some snacks at the kids and snuck back downstairs to my dungeon disaster of a home office to follow up with a couple emails. When I came back upstairs, I sent Colum to his room to do his homework, told Irene to do find something other than TV to do and went into the kitchen to figure out dinner.

Mary followed me, dragging an unopened box of diapers up to the kitchen island to serve as step stool. I peered into the fridge, the freezer and the pantry, trying to figure out what I could turn into a meal. We were flipping through a cookbook looking for inspiration, darling Mary atop her makeshift stool, when she yelped. She held her hands out toward me and we both looked up.

Water was dripping from the ceiling onto the island. By the time I scooped Mary up, it was streaming down. I bolted upstairs, toddler in arm, to see what was going on. Oh no. The toilet.

“Colum, did you just flush the toilet?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you notice if it was overflowing?”

“No, I didn’t see.”

The toilet was running when I got there and the entire floor flooded. I dropped Mary into her crib and ran in to stop the toilet, plunge it and start throwing towels down to sop up the water. Now, I’m a lousy housekeeper, I know that, but there are two things I am fastidious about. One is raw chicken and the other is fecal matter.

It’s fair to say I was freaking the hell out. I kept stopping to wash my hands because, what? Were ten shit-free seconds going to somehow make me less up to my elbows in crap-filled toilet water? I was also incredibly upset about my socks and jeans getting wet, the ones I had just pulled out of the dryer a couple hours before. (My take home lesson this month, apparently, is never do any laundry, ever, because fate is out to get you.) Don’t even get me started about having to use bath towels to take up the water. Oh god.

And then, my dear friends, I went down to the kitchen.

Water was still dripping from the ceiling onto the island and the loaf of bread, bowl of nuts, cookbook, assorted dishes and toys sitting on it. It was dripping into the sink and onto the clean dishes in the dish rack. It was dripping all over Mary’s highchair and onto the floor and collecting in large brown pools. It was a derisive dripping, mocking my feeble attempt to catch it all in a single bucket. I was going to need more towels.

I ran around collecting towels and yelling at the kids to please just go and entertain your baby sister, don’t you hear her screaming, what’s wrong with you?! I started to come up with a plan. Burning down the house, upon more careful consideration, seemed a bit extreme. I would dry up all the water first with bath towels; it was nothing an extra-scalding hot, super-ultra wash cycle couldn’t take care of. This is why god invented bleach. That’s right, hippies, I said bleach.

I then moved all the dishes from the island to the sink because everything that could fit was going to have to go through the dishwasher on a sanitize cycle. I threw out the bread and nuts and any paper product that had been exposed. If I could just get the two floors washed, the kitchen and the bathroom, then I could properly clean the island and the counter and the sink and every other item that had been sitting out after bedtime. It was around then I thought to send Ed a frenzied message about poo water gushing into the kitchen. Because the only thing worse than seeing it happen might be imagining it.

I was on my hands and knees with a bucket of scalding soap and bleach water scrubbing the hell out of my floor while Mary screamed her poor little heart out in her crib because the other two had found their way down to the playroom. How did this even happen?? I’m no house-building expert, but I couldn’t help but think that a bathroom floor should be able to contain some amount of water without it instantly seeping into the room below. Irene had left a tap running a few months earlier and there was a bit of dripping from the spill over, but this was ridiculous. The bathroom’s probably a gut job, new subfloor and everything.  And the kitchen ceiling too maybe.

The good news is that we’ve been wanting to redo that bathroom but haven’t had the time or money to do it yet. So … at least we don’t have to tear up new tile, right? Yay? The bad news is OUR MAIN BATHROOM IS A GUT JOB and we don’t have the money to do anything about it. Yes, this is the interior monologue you want to have while you are scrubbing human fecal matter off your kitchen floor while your baby wails inconsolably upstairs. Shit, what would Gwyneth do?

Silver lining! At least all the surfaces in my kitchen can be cleaned! At least the bathroom flood wasn’t into the living room, spewing literal crap loads all over my upholstered furniture, carpet, drapery and basket of stuffed animals. Really, I was lucky.

I finally finished the kitchen floor and went up to disinfect the bathroom which is at least in, “There, there,” range of Mary’s crib. Once all the floors were cleaned and all possible contaminants contained in their special quarters I was able to finally pick up my baby and calm her down. We’d go out for fast food for dinner, I’d get to the rest later, everything would be all right.

That’s when a giant ball of poo rolled out of Mary’s pant leg and onto the carpet. Right, I was about to open that box of diapers she was standing on to look at cookbooks, wasn’t I?

Image credit.

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Support This: No Casino Toronto

FACT: A mega-casino will be built in downtown Toronto if we don’t stop it. City council will be voting on this in the next six weeks. This is really happening and it’s happening now.

We can’t let this happen. 

You don’t have to be opposed to legalized gambling or casinos in general to not want one in our city. I’m not opposed to strip clubs or lap dancing, for example, but that doesn’t mean I want to build a giant sex emporium to serve as the city’s main tourist attraction either.

Here’s why it’s a bad idea:

1. Toronto is a thriving, cosmopolitan city. It’s the economic and cultural hub of our country. It’s home to the Leafs, Blue Jays, Raptors, Argos, Toronto FC and The Rock among other sports teams. People come to Toronto to visit the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canadian Opera Company, the National Ballet, the Toronto Symphony, the Ontario Science Centre, the CN Tower, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Jazz Festival, Gay Pride and Caribana. They come here to experience a thriving music and live theatre scene, to visit Toronto’s network of multicultural neighbourhoods, to eat at hundreds of top restaurants, to see its parks and beaches and the Toronto Islands and to do so much more. How does a casino — a giant, insular, blinking, money-sucking time warp — jive with our vision of the city? It doesn’t.

2. But don’t we need the money it will generate? No, we don’t. A mega-casino complex is built to be self-sustaining and cut off from the rest of the city. Its raison d’être is to keep people from leaving. Far from bringing customers to local restaurants and hotels, it will likely take them away. We also have yet to see what the taxpayers’ burden will become in the construction of the casino if the private sector fails to raise enough money.

This casino also means the end of the OLG Slots at Woodbine which has successfully partnered with the horse racing industry. That could very well bring about the end of the racetrack altogether, the loss of 4000 gaming jobs, 4800 racetrack jobs and greatly impact over 50,000 other jobs in the racehorse industry as a whole. That’s far more jobs than will be created by the new casino.

What’s more, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) itself has recommended that a few discreet, high-stakes card tables throughout the city would bring in just as much revenue as a casino.

3. Also consider that a destination casino is different from one you pass on your way home from work. You can plan for a trip to Vegas or a night in Niagara Falls, budget accordingly, indulge or even overindulge, then leave it all behind and come back home.

Compare that to the omnipresent allure of a casino a short streetcar jaunt from the office. You might just stop in for a drink after work and play the slots for 20 minutes to unwind, you think. Six hours and your entire savings account later, you have to go home and face your family. Casinos are designed to lure people in, take their money and keep taking it.

I am not making any moral judgement about it necessarily, but I do think it is clear that a mega-casino in our own city will take a devastating toll on the families who live here.

4. And, yes, there will be horrible traffic congestion and the requisite parking spot per slot machine and two spots per employee will dictate a giant moat of a parking lot to keep the rest of the city at a remove. Imagine a giant, dark hole in the heart of the city and think of what else you might like to see there instead.

Please, let’s say NO to a mega-casino in Toronto.

We don’t need one and we don’t want one.

SIGN THIS PETITION. DO IT NOW.

Share widely and spread the word. Thank you.

For more information, see the No Casino Toronto website. Like them on Facebook. Follow them on Twitter.

 

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Stuff I’m Digging: Baby Gourmet Baby Food

Head’s up! It’s a giveaway!

Hey, you. Yes, you, the one up to her elbows in organic sweet potato puree with the salt-free, homemade chicken stock simmering away on the stove. Good for you. There are a whole bunch of reasons making your own baby food is great. It’s cheaper and fresher and you know exactly what’s in it, for starters. You also get to control portion sizes and play around with adding flavours and ingredients.

Strange, then, that I wasn’t able to remember any of those reasons when I was scrambling to get three kids fed and dressed and out the door in time to catch the school bus. When Mary was starting on solids last year, it was all I could do to run the dishwasher every day and find any food to put on the table, let alone prepare special batches of purees for my freezer.

Instead, I relied on a mix of organic, store-bought baby food (which is totally fine and healthy, cut yourself some slack) and putting steamed veggies from our meals through the baby food mill or mashing them with a fork on the fly. Most babies are really only on the pureed stuff for a couple months anyway and will be putting away soft finger foods before you know it.

And then, when Mary was 7 or 8 months old, I discovered Baby Gourmet and the clouds parted and angels started singing. Not exactly, but it was pretty great. First of all, the packaging is genius. The food is all organic and comes in little squeezable pouches so you can squeeze it right onto the spoon without contaminating the rest of the package with saliva. Screw the cap back on and save the rest for later. It’s the ideal baby food for when you’re out and about.

They’ve also just added six new flavours to their line up: 1. Banana, Apple, Fig, Oatmeal and Greek Yogurt, 2. Banana, Apple and Beetberry, 3. Banana, Apple and Kale Blend, 4. Minty Pears, Apples and Peas, 5. Cherry Apple Blossom and 6. Fruity Carrot and Greek Yogurt Smoothie. I don’t have an infant anymore so the three kids and I cracked these open to sample ourselves. They were all delicious. They were so good, in fact, that my four-year old keeps sneaking the left overs out of the fridge to eat as a snack. I even promised her some for dessert one day!

Win some and see for yourself. I’m giving away a prize pack of all six new flavours. Contest closes Friday, March 29 at 11:59pm. Canada and US.

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Overgrown: My Boy’s First Haircut

This post was inspired by the Fisher-Price Million Moments of Joy campaign.

First haircut 1

I was taking a walk down memory lane the other day courtesy of my Facebook photo albums. I swear I will find, upload, organize and print all my photos properly one day! I swear I will. Until then, thank goodness for social media and thank goodness for this blog.

So, yes, there I was strolling down memory lane when I found these shots from Colum’s first haircut. He was just shy of two and a half and I’d all but forgotten about his golden curls and chubby cheeks. How can he have aged so much and me not all, right?

We’d let his ringlets go, falling naturally into baby hockey hair. They were so sweet. But his hair was becoming a bit unruly and starting to get into his eyes. Irene was also due to be born in couple weeks and it seemed like a good time for a special big boy outing.

Colum's first haircut 2

So Ed and I took him to a local barber shop for father-son haircuts. We could have brought him to a special kiddie place with airplane-shaped chairs and Treehouse on TV, but we thought he’d get a bigger kick getting his hair cut with Daddy. We were right.

Colum's first haircut 3

He was so good, guys. He sat perfectly still and was completely serious.

Colum's first haircut 4

He looks so much like Mary in the above picture, I can’t believe it. It’s Mary with Irene’s hair (if Irene had a mullet).

Colum's first haircut 5

And just like that, instant big boy. I’m getting all teary eyed all over again at how quickly that first haircut transforms them. My first baby. Might as well just hand him the keys to the car.

You guys should click through your old Facebook albums (or actual, properly organized photo albums if you are my hero) and pick out your own OVERjoyed, OVERtired, OVERwhelmed, OVER____ memories that make you smile. Do it for the love of your children, of course, but also so you can enter the Fisher-Price Million Moments of Joy contest while you’re at it.

Here’s the scoop on the contest. For eight weeks, starting on March 5, Fisher-Price will be giving away weekly prize packs worth about $200 and consisting of a My Little Snugabunny™ Bouncer, a Laugh & Learn™ Dance & Play Puppy and an Ocean Wonders™ Aquarium. To enter, simply go to the contest site and share your own special moment of joy via a photo, video or text description. (Canada only, sorry!) You can enter as many different moments of joy as you want. Here’s my entry!

Disclosure – I am participating in the Million Moments of Joy Blogger Campaign by Mom Central Canada on behalf of Fisher-Price. I received compensation as a thank you for participating and for sharing my honest opinion. The opinions on this blog are my own.