Author: Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

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

Uncategorized

There Are No Shortcuts

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date November 18, 2009

DAILY SNACK

Both kids fell asleep in the car last night.

Fantastic, I thought,

I can skip straight to the peace and quiet.

Just as soon as I carry them both up to our second floor apartment

By myself.

Not wanting to leave either in the dark alleyway,

I deposited Colum just inside the door

Where he dozed on the bottom step.

Irene woke up on the way in

So I plopped her in her playpen while I went back down for Colum.

And she screamed

Bloody murder.

She screamed so loud and so hard

That even Colum who had stayed firmly asleep

On the back stairs and then while I undressed him

Finally woke up.

The cycle of waking each other up continued

For over an hour.

I won’t be trying that again.

Uncategorized

Fundraiser to Rebuild the Children’s Storefront

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date November 18, 2009

Fundraiser: Tues, Nov. 24; 1 – 5pm for families, 7 – 11pm evening concert; Tranzac Club 292 Brunswick Ave.

There was a horrible fire on Halloween night that engulfed a building near Bathurst and Dupont and burnt it so badly it needed to be torn down. That building had been home to the Children’s Storefront since 1975. It was a free drop-in centre for parents with babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers, yes. But one

Uncategorized

Hi Santa Parade!

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date November 16, 2009

DAILY SNACK

For two hours we stood by the side of the road

Watching the Santa Claus Parade go by.

And Colum said hi to each and every float, character, and musician.

They were waving at us after all.

Uncategorized

Wagon Built For Two

DAILY SNACK

Because I am the last person

In the world

To have a cell phone that doesn’t have a camera in it,

And because I often forget the actual camera at home,

You will just have to take my word

When I tell you about how I put both kids in the wagon the other day.

Colum sat with his back on the far end

And his legs straight out.

And then Irene sat between Colum’s legs with her back to his chest.

I told him to wrap his arms around her and hold her

So she wouldn’t fall out.

And he did.

I pulled them down the street

And when I looked back at my kids,

They were both grinning as big and wide as their faces would go.

It was quite possibly

The sweetest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Can you picture it?

(Sorry.)

Uncategorized

Come Here, Come Here, Go Away

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date November 12, 2009

DAILY SNACK

Irene’s morning naps are shrinking.

So I’ve been trying to sneak away to the computer

To take care of a bit of work

All morning.

After about 30 seconds,

Irene comes toddling over,

Arms out-stretched.

I scoop her onto my lap and she struggles to get down.

She needs me to play with her.

Until it’s time to change her diaper.

Now she’s tearing off across the apartment completely bottomless.

She can’t get far enough away from me.

Uncategorized

Remembrance

DAILY SNACK

There’s a fair to middling chance

(As my husband would say)

That I won’t be able to swing two minutes of silence at 11am today.

Oh, I’ll be able to shut up,

But it might be hard to get some good reflecting done

Under the barrage of, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

So I’ll take a couple minutes now

To remember the great sacrifices made by grandparent’s generation,

And hope that my children’s will never need to.

Image courtesy of Per Ola Wiberg (Powi) on Flickr.

Uncategorized

150th Santa Claus Parade

Santa Claus Parade Sunday, November 15 12:30pm

My mom used to take us to see the Santa Claus parade when she worked as a secretary at the Sick Kids Hospital Emergency Department. I remember it being crowded and having to crane my neck to watch the floats and marching bands go by. There was Santa at the end, of course, which was a pretty big pay off. My favourite part was always the upside-down clowns who walk on their hands. How do they do it?! There were some brutally cold parade days back in the ’80’s and we would warm up over steaming hot chocolate in the hospital before going home.

Contests

Personalized Pacifiers, Pretty Peace Please

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date November 10, 2009

Update, Jan. 16, 2010: The company has contacted me and followed through on their delivery. It seems there was a personnel change that caused the service rift. The business is up and running again.

Update, Jan. 9, 2010: This company has failed to delivery the pacifiers they donated to a charity raffle I held and seems to have gone AWOL — not responding to emails, not tweeting, etc. Please refrain from ordering anything until I can verify they are still in business.

I must admit that I used to be a little biased against pacifiers. It’s probably because my parents didn’t use them for any of us four at all and I didn’t see the need. I mean why give your baby something you need to keep buying and then have to deal with taking it away when they get older. Insofar as the whole soother debate is framed around thumb sucking vs. soother, I always sided with the thumb sucking. It’s free, it’s easy, it’s guaranteed self-soothing and, hey, I used to be a thumb sucker. Besides, soothers look dumb.