Magazine

A tired mom holding a coffee cup while looking at a baby on a round play mat

The Honest Truth About Play Mats For Babies

I was on my hands and knees with a spray bottle of carpet cleaner, frantically scrubbing neon yellow newborn poop out of our cheap apartment carpeting, while my oldest screamed his absolute head off in a bouncy seat nearby. It...

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Dad holding an 11-month-old baby who is reaching for his smartphone

The Ping Requests: Why Your Infant Knows When You Grab The Device

It's 3:17 AM here in Portland. The rain is doing that annoying misty thing against the window where it doesn't quite sound like rain, just a low-level static. I've my 11-month-old daughter in my left arm. I've a bottle of...

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Frustrated toddler sitting on a living room rug surrounded by too many plastic toys.

Raising Kids, Not Nepo Babies: A Rural Texas Mom's Reality Check

I'm sitting on the floor of my living room, staring at a literal mountain of brightly colored, battery-operated plastic garbage that my oldest child just received for his third birthday, and he's crying. I mean real, full-body, gasping-for-air sobs. Why?...

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Tired mom filling out birth certificate paperwork on a hospital bed

What nobody tells you about the most popular baby names 2024

My mother-in-law told me I had to pick an astrologically aligned name or my son's digestion would be ruined forever. The lactation consultant at shift change whispered that giving a kid an 'A' name makes them aggressive. Then my husband's...

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Tired dad looking at a baby photo album surrounded by baby toys

The hilariously chaotic quest to find a safe lil baby album

I was sitting in the dark at half past midnight on a Tuesday, entirely covered in what I deeply hoped was just pureed parsnip from dinner, trying to complete a simple parental task. The twins, Florence and Matilda, had finally...

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Tired dad looking up the viral baby naming trend while holding an 11-month-old.

The Kelce Taylor Baby Trend and What Postpartum Really Takes

My phone was vibrating violently against the armrest while I attempted to balance a screaming two-week-old on my forearm like a very angry, leaky football. On the cracked screen were three unread messages offering wildly contradictory instructions on how to...

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Tired mom looking at a smartphone surrounded by baby products and laundry

Navigating the Overwhelming Baby Industry Without Losing Your Mind

I'm currently staring at a mountain of mismatched Paw Patrol socks on my living room floor, trying to fold laundry before my toddler wakes up, and my phone just buzzed with a notification from a parenting app I forgot I...

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An exhausted dad holding an iPad away from a frustrated kid while a baby crawls nearby.

How to Get Baby Nessie in Fisch (Without Ruining Your Weekend)

My living room currently sounds like a server room during a distributed denial-of-service attack, except the alarms are just my wife's nine-year-old nephew, Leo, aggressively clicking a mouse, while my eleven-month-old daughter aggressively hits a wooden block against the coffee...

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A messy living room floor covered in dried baby's breath flower stems

The Boho Decor Disaster: Why Baby's Breath Flowers and Toddlers Clash

I was halfway through positioning a wicker basket that cost more than my first car when I noticed one of the twins chewing thoughtfully on what looked like a dried twig. We were attempting a DIY first-birthday photoshoot in our...

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