The brutal truth about infant wardrobes and diaper blowouts
My mother-in-law walked into my recovery room and immediately tried to put a fleece hat on my two-day-old son. An hour later, the lactation consultant breezed in and told me to strip him down to his diaper so he wouldn't...
Surviving the Absolute Avalanche of Useless Newborn Baby Stuff
At 34 weeks pregnant, my wife and I entered a fugue state in a suburban retail park and bought a machine specifically designed to heat baby wipes to exactly 37 degrees Celsius. I remember standing at the till, handing over...
The Chinese Gender Calendar 2025: Science, Myths & Magic
The bloke at the local Waitrose told me to look closely at the shape of my wife's ankles. My mother-in-law, bless her, aggressively dangled her cursed wedding ring over a very pregnant belly on a piece of dental floss while...
The V1.0 Stroller Bug: Why My First Hardware Purchase Failed
It's 43 degrees, pouring that specific sideways Portland rain, and I'm violently kicking the back left wheel of a $900 piece of baby gear while my wife Sarah watches from the passenger seat of our Honda Civic. This was my...
The Truth About Surviving Your Own Baby Shower
I was thirty-one weeks pregnant, sitting on my incredibly dusty apartment floor in Chicago, staring at a mountain of tissue paper while my mother-in-law asked why I hated color. She had wanted royal blue balloons everywhere. I had asked for...
The Great Registry Meltdown and the Weird Return of Buybuy Baby
I was twenty-four weeks pregnant, sitting in the sweltering heat of my Ford F-150 outside a suburban strip mall, ugly crying into a half-eaten sleeve of saltines. It was July in Texas, my ankles had officially merged with my calves,...
The Brutally Honest Guide to Surviving the Baby Gear Avalanche
When I was pregnant with my first, I got three completely different pieces of advice in the span of a single Sunday dinner. My mom, who firmly believes the 1990s were the peak of human parenting, told me I needed...
The Great Baby Accessories Delusion: What Parents Actually Need
I'm currently staring at a twenty-pound velvet baby fedora. I found it in a plastic storage tub at the back of our loft, resting gently atop a pristine, battery-operated wipe warmer. This box is essentially an archaeological dig of my...
Dear Past Jess: How to Actually Win a Bio Babykleidung Sale
Dear Jess from six months ago. You’re currently sitting on the floor of the nursery, staring at a mountain of stained, weirdly stiff fast-fashion onesies, crying because the new baby is coming in three weeks and our bank account is...