Rebecca Cuneo Keenan is a writer who lives in Toronto with her husband and three children.
DAILY SNACK
Yes, kids love to help in the kitchen. Cooking, baking, even washing up. It’s a fun way to learn new skills, too.
But it’s really gross.
Just try not to envision your child’s hands wrist deep in what became the food you now eat. Good luck.
Image courtesy of saltyseadog on Flickr.
Do your kids like horses? Racing? Cheering? Hot dogs and french fries? Then follow my lead and take them to the Track. There will probably be ten races, lasting just a couple minutes apiece, with about 15 minutes between them. You can buy a program for a couple bucks to find out the names of the horses and what their records are, if you want. There’ll be a board in the centre of the track that shows the odds on each horse and a big screen next to it showing the race as it happens. (It’s sometimes hard to see who’s who when the horses are on the other side of the track.)
DAILY SNACK
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY
On this day three years ago:
The midwife woke me up from my epidural induced slumber to tell me it was time to push. The fetal heartbeat was accelerated again, though, and they were going to have to consult with an OB who’d almost certainly want to use forceps and vacuums. So she told me to push like crazy, so she could say that yes the heartbeat was a bit fast, but, look, the baby’s crowning.
About two hours later, no vacuum, no forceps, my baby boy was born. Seven pounds, ten ounces and happy and healthy as can be.
When is the last time you read Curious George? I’m talking about the original here, not any of the recent mass-produced gems “illustrated in the style of H. A. Rey.” Because it is genius.
It wasn’t until I picked up a barely-used copy at Pandemonium last year that I really started to remember it from my own childhood. And the narrative twists that I swallowed unblinkingly as a child now strike me as both wonderful and incredible.
DAILY SNACK
On this day three years ago:
Sleep was harder last night, contractions waking me up every half hour or so.
Laboured in and out of the shower as hot water came and went.
Sent to hospital early because of elevated fetal heartbeat.
Hearbeat stable now — labour in roomy hospital shower.
Dilation is very slow, so I cave and ask for an epidural.
It numbs only my left half, but I suffer through for a long while before getting it re-done.
Suddenly, finally, no more pain.
I fall asleep.
It used to be that doctors prescribed the medicine and we gratefully took it. No questions asked. Modern medicine had been able to treat and prevent so many diseases, to save so many lives, and doctors were given unquestioning authority by the majority of people.
Welcome to the information age. Magazines, newspapers, t.v. and now the internet report on all the latest medical news and the general population now knows about every new study, each inconsistency and all the dissenting opinions. We know about how the medical establishment let us down by over-prescribing antibiotics and ushering in the age of super bugs. (Though it was us begging our doctors for something to treat this sore throat.) We know about the many flip-flops of opinions about diet and nutrition. (But we still lock onto the latest tidbit of information as though it were gospel. Trans fats bad for you? Ban them! Blueberries good? Eat them by the bushel.) We know that formula was good but now it’s bad and that babies should be put to sleep on their tummies, er, sides … what’s that? Backs. Yes, for sure backs.
DAILY SNACK
On this day three years ago:
It has been over 12 hours since my first contraction at reading series Pontiac Quarterly in the basement of Toronto’s Drake Hotel. I was able to sleep on and off and things were much the same by morning. Sharp but manageable contractions hitting every ten to twenty minutes and lasting under a minute. I went about my day and sent hubby to work. He got sent home.
DAILY SNACK
How much TV is too much TV?
Any amount is too much.
No more than half an hour or one hour per day.
DO NOT let the baby look at the TV!
Hmmm.
And if the children seem to be glowing?
It has been over two weeks now since eight-year-old Victoria Stafford was taken from her school in the small town of Woodstock, Ontario. The story is slipping out of the news cycle and hopes are starting to wane.
These kinds of tragedies are heart-wrenching because what parent doesn’t know the feeling of looking up and finding your kid missing. Seeing him turn the bend and worrying that he’ll get lost or hurt or (please, no) abducted. Because we can imagine what that family is feeling. Because we know the agony — we’ve played it out in our heads a million times — that mother is feeling.
But also because we then hold our children ever closer. And we don’t let them walk to their friend’s house — not tonight. And we don’t want them going to the park by themselves. We want to be there, we want to protect them. But that isn’t good for them either. They need room to explore and space to discover their independence. How much space? And how soon? How do we find the right balance of protection and freedom, of guidance and experience?