Tag: babies

Thank God That’s Not Me, I Mean Congratulations!

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date June 19, 2012
4 Comments on Thank God That’s Not Me, I Mean Congratulations!

We left the kids with my mom and squealed off into the sunset. Did I say sunset? I meant the incredible traffic jam waiting to get into the Ontario Place parking lot for the Lady Antebellum concert. It was insane and made all the more maddening by the fact that we weren’t even going to the concert. We were going to a wedding and, dammit, this was supposed to be the one wedding we actually made in time for the ceremony.

(That hour long Catholic mass that proceeded our wedding ceremony? A late comers dream. Your welcome.)

The only photographic evidence of my night out: a picture I sent to my sister wondering if the shoes go with the dress. Still waiting on the answer.

We eventually made it up to the roof of Atlantis in time to catch the better part of a lovely wedding ceremony, Lake Ontario and the relics of Ontario Place in the background and the Toronto skyline soaring above it all. All of this was set to the sweet strains of Lady Antebellum’s opening act covering Zeppelin. Ah, serendipity. Or something.

The point is that it was a lovely wedding filled with lovely people. Some of those people were even aglow with the shiny dew of pregnancy, swollen feet barely contained by practical flats, sipping soda water, steering clear of the sushi and wondering when they might be able to escape to their beds. Oh, the miracle of new life. Thank god that’s not me, I thought.

One woman even had her four month old with her, snuggled up against her chest for hours on end. Being jiggled and wriggled and bounced in his stroller. Being passed around and swaddled and paced with and still, he did not sleep. Thank god that’s not me.

My youngest baby is nine months old which means I can finally go out for an evening without worrying about leaky breasts. I can enjoy a couple drinks and can start working toward staying in the same dress size for more than a few months. If ever there were any doubt that three is plenty of kids for us (and there have been fleeting moments of lunacy, it’s true), then Saturday night has put them to rest.

Are you having a baby? Good for you. But I think I’m done.

Tags babies, night out, Ontario Place, Pregnancy, three's enough, weddings

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On Not Keeping Up At All Oh God Please Help

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date May 8, 2012
11 Comments on On Not Keeping Up At All Oh God Please Help

Life is a complete scramble right now. It’s not just the mad rush to cram lunch in my kids’ faces and pack Colum a snack and get everybody out the door in time to catch the school bus every single day. It’s not just the trying to get a six year old out of a wet bathing suit with a screaming baby and a three year old running laps around the change room. It’s not just juggling t-ball practices and games and two different swimming lessons with dinner prep and dirty diapers. It’s not just getting them dressed and undressed and bathed and maybe even squeezing in time for a shower myself.

That’s just my baseline scramble. That stuff is expected.

It’s also the laundry and the dishes and the toys and the games and the snippets of paper and all the freaking STUFF that I can’t keep at bay. It’s the papers from school piling up on the kitchen counter and the dry erase calendar that’s been scribbled over. It’s the doctor’s appointments and birthday parties to attend and to throw and the countless other events and obligations I can no longer keep in my head. It’s the pantry jammed full of food stuff in no particular order despite my best intentions to keep it organized. Ditto for the fridge. And the linen closet. And all the closets and drawers, really. It’s the cleaning and weeding and planting and mulching and all kinds of other gardening-type stuff I’m still learning about.

It’s also this blog and the other writing I should be doing. In any given moment I have SO MUCH to do that I am paralyzed with indecision. If Mary’s napping for an hour what can I really get accomplished? A blog post? Maybe, if it’s crappy, and if I don’t also check in with Twitter and Facebook and G+ and Pinterest and my email and my other email. I’ll start to unload the dishwasher and then put some clothes in the dryer and then get Irene a snack and then start to pick up the toys in the living room and then quickly check my email … and somehow nothing gets done.

And that is the hardest part of parenting for me. The doing nothing. We go to the park and they play and maybe I play too or chat with another parent and, really, I’m doing nothing. It’s just so much waiting around. Waiting for swimming and t-ball and the school bus. Waiting for bedtime.

I know, intellectually, that’s it’s not doing nothing. I know that in those gaps, those moments of waiting and doing nothing, the best parts of parenting happen. Just being there, watching the t-ball game. Reading to Irene and Mary while we wait. Playing ball with the kids. Walking places! We do our best talking when we’re walking and driving places. It’s just so hard to be in that moment when I’m constantly rifling through a never-ending To Do list in my head. It feels like I’m doing nothing and I don’t have time for nothing!

I also know that this is magnified tenfold by the baby. So much of our at-home time is spent caring for an increasingly mobile and demanding baby. The half hour here, the twenty minutes there that I used to spend cleaning the kitchen, prepping dinner, folding laundry or even reading a magazine are no longer sufficient. Or, rather, I just don’t get those twenty or thirty uninterrupted minutes anymore. So what could be, should be and used to be a twenty minute job now takes an hour if it gets done at all. And then the sheer volume of chores and tasks and work to be done during naps and at night is just too much.

But babies grow up. In the blink of an eye Mary will be walking and talking and I will miss this babyhood. So this too shall pass and I shouldn’t wish it away before its time.

In the meantime, I need discipline and schedules and routines that work. I need organization. Please help a girl out. What are your best tips for organizing your time?

Tags babies, organization, schedules, scrambling, stress

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February 2012. Pictured.

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date March 15, 2012

Hey guys, remember February? No? Well, let’s take a stroll down memory lane. It’s time for the monthly photo recap. Now two weeks late!

Irene was taking her first-ever dance lesson, a creative movement class, at a local community centre. Oddly (since there’s nothing but kids where we live) there was only one other little girl enrolled in this session. And if that little girl isn’t there?

Irene also went skating on real skates (as opposed to bob skates) for the first time last month. I’m actually pretty bummed that we only got out on the ice with her once this year. I’m sticking to the new baby excuse … That’s good for a few months, right?

We had a lovely visit with my grandmother. You see that kitchen table? It’s over 50 years old and my dad and his five siblings were all bathed on it every morning as babies. God, I love that table.

And sometimes even a Scarborough strip mall can look kind of beautiful.

Story time!

There was even snow one day this winter! Seriously, it was the least winter-y Toronto winter I can remember. We only got to use the new Christmas sled once, but at least both my chins were there for it. Gah! Don’t look!

I borrowed a Bumbo chair from a friend (thanks Elle!) and Mary is enjoying the new perspective.

Mary and I went to the mall one Friday afternoon and enjoyed some quality time together. It was wonderful.

Dinner out with three young kids is usually burgers, but sometimes pizza. This was burgers.

Peer interaction is so important. Mary with Emma Willer’s little Charlie.

Irene continues to push the frontiers of fashion.

I’m trying to get Mary acclimatized to her playpen so I’ll be able to keep her safe from her big sibs. Hey! Wait a minute!

This is Colum’s first published photo and my only real workout these days.

Pizza Day at Colum’s school means pizza lunch for us girls, too. Mmmm. Vesuvios.

My baby brother with two of my babies. Aw.

We got hit with a nasty gastro bug at the very end of the month. Colum and Ed were the first victims and Irene followed suit a week later, missing The Lorax premiere. Poor thing.

The days of Mary lying on her back and playing in her baby gym for twenty minutes at a time are over. Alas. She’s been able to roll over for a couple months, but only just started doing it every single time you put her down. Then she gets stuck, of course, and starts crying. So we tried something new.