Author: Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

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

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Locally-Made Baby Sun Hat

An essential and integral part of parenting, as far as I can tell, is running around in circles trying to find all the gear. Socks, sweaters, mitts, and hats. There’s winter hats and ball caps and sun hats. There’s boys’ hats and girls’ hats, baby bonnets and hats with dinosaurs on them. I know I’ve got hats coming out the wazoo. I still wasn’t quite satisfied with the little tan baseball cap and/or denim sun hat I have for L’il I, though. I wanted a one-hat-fits-all for the summer and, yes, I wanted something a little more girly. (I know. What’s happening to me?) So when I ran around the apartment for twenty minutes last week on the way out to the park and found NO hats, I clearly needed to buy a new one. Right?

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Boy Vs. Girl

DAILY SNACK

It finally happened.

Another 3-year-old boy at the park.

We love girls, but they don’t run as fast. They don’t push for fun.

They don’t want to do the same stupid thing over and over again forever.

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66-year-old Mom-to-be Raises More Questions Than Answers

There’s another prego senior in the news this week and the present is looking more and more like some sort of dystopian future. 66-year-old Elizabeth Adeney from England is eight months pregnant thanks to IVF treatments undergone in Ukraine. This is on the heels of the 60-year-old Canadian woman who gave birth to twins in February, and a handful of other 60-plus-year-old women carrying pregnancies to term. I was actually all set to rise to their defense. I had a whole spiel planned out where I lay into the mainstream media for trotting out these freak-show stories under the auspices of ethical concerns. Does anybody really care about the well-being of these families anymore than they care about the Jon and Kate sextuplets, a family of little people, or the outrageously obese of reality tv? Aren’t we really just interested in the spectacle of it all?

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My Excuse

DAILY SNACK

Late nights and late starts to mornings. I’ve been playing catch-up for weeks.

Self-imposed deadlines start to crack at, “Mom? Can you please read The Little Red Hen to me?”

Breathe and get some perspective.

Of course I can.

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Photo Shoot Prep

DAILY SNACK

What are you doing, Mom?

I’m just bandaging Bubba Bear.

No . . .

Well, he hurt his head and I’m fixing it.

Nooooo!!!!

(five minutes elapse)

What are you doing?

Fixing Rolph’s ear.

Oh. Do we need the whole roll of toilet paper for that?

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Head Injuries Too Common For Comfort

Hey you! Yes, you with the kid on your shoulder. And you throwing that baby into the air and then catching it. And you kids riding bikes without helmets. Stop it. All of you need to just stop.

At the risk of sounding like . . . no, scratch that, I know that I’m going to sound like an overprotective old shrew, but it is worth repeating. I guess that’ s why us moms sound like a broken record a lot of the time — we will just keep repeating this stuff until somebody listens. Or until it gets so far under your skin as to ingrain itself in your very essence and you will never, ever be able to engage in that behaviour without feeling fundamentally uneasy. (Now that I’m a parent there’s a whole torrent of warnings from my childhood that I simply cannot stomach: kids on balconies, kids running onto elevators — what if it’s not there?!, ink on skin, and young babies bearing weight on their legs, to name a few.) Some of these nagging warnings are just our own particular peeves, but some are real hazards. This is hazard number one.

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The Impromptu Day Trip

Once a week I like to recommend something fun for the family to do. I’m not picky. I’ll write about a good song or a crazy vacation, as long as I’ve tried it and liked it. There’s really no shortage of things to do for kicks. Still, every so often, I come up dry. So does everybody, right? Sometimes you want to get out of the house and do something, but you can’t for the life of you figure out what you feel like doing. Guess what? That’s okay, too.

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Learning to Fend for Yourself

DAILY SNACK

They were laughing, he was running.

They chased him around and around and it really looked like fun.

But it didn’t stop.

Are you having fun with these boys?

No. They keep chasing me. They’re being mean.

Oh dear. Tell them to stop. Tell them you don’t like this game.

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When TV Doesn’t Work

DAILY SNACK

I look up from the computer.

Okay, you’re sitting too close. Move, I said.

That is way too loud. Your sister is trying to sleep.

You can have some volume, you know. No, that’s too loud.

Yes, you can have chocolate. Yes, you can eat in the living room. Yes, you can watch another show.

Not so close, I said!

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Public Breastfeeding: Sex, Breasts, and Facebook

My mother breastfed all four of her children. And her mother before her, and so on. I am incredibly fortunate to have an unbroken tradition of breastfeeding in my family; and the support and understanding that comes with that tradition. Why, then, am I the first woman in my family to feel comfortable feeding my baby in public? To feed my baby at a cafe or a mall, on a bench or on some steps — wherever I am when my baby is hungry? Why did my mother duck into public bathroom stalls (can you imagine?!?) to breastfeed her babies? And what has happened since?

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