Realistic baby girl shower ideas that will not exhaust the mother
I was 33 weeks pregnant, ankles looking like over-proofed dough, trapped on a wicker throne in my aunt's living room. Thirty women were staring at me while my cousin measured my abdomen with two-ply toilet paper. Every masi in a...
Debugging My Baby Girl's First Halloween Costume Disaster
I was standing in the driveway, sweating through my flannel, trying to solve a geometry problem that shouldn't exist. It was 52 degrees in Portland, a classic damp October morning, but my internal CPU was overheating because I couldn't get...
The Absolute Mess Of Buying Baby Gear (And What Actually Works)
It was 2017. November. A Tuesday, I think, and raining completely sideways. I was exactly thirty-two weeks pregnant with Maya, my second kid, and I was sitting completely cross-legged on the cold linoleum floor of aisle four at BuyBuyBaby (RIP...
Baby I'm Preying On You Tonight: Surviving Sleep Regressions
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was pinned to the squeaky gray glider in our nursery wearing a nursing tank that smelled strongly of sour milk and desperation. My son Leo was exactly four months old, and...
Building A Survival Baby Hamper For The 3 AM Meltdowns
It's exactly 3:14 AM on a Tuesday. Maya is four days old, and she's screaming with the intensity of a tiny, furious dinosaur. I'm standing in our dark kitchen wearing nothing but mesh hospital underwear and a nursing bra that...
Confessions: Why a Plastic Bag is a Terrible Baby Keepsake Box
I'm currently sitting cross-legged on a heavily stained rug at two in the morning, holding a small, crinkled ziplock bag that looks suspiciously like evidence from a low-budget crime scene. Inside is a tiny, pale wisp of hair. I know,...
The Truth About Creating a Baby Map: Inside the Womb and Out
Listen, thirty-four weeks pregnant, I was sitting on my Chicago apartment's bathroom tiles at two in the morning with a purple washable marker, poking my own abdomen. The snow was coming down hard outside, and my late-night search history was...
Why Getting A Pet Piglet Might Actually Break Your Spirit
When we decided the twins needed to learn some sort of vague responsibility that didn't involve keeping me awake until 3am, the advice rolled in like a thick London fog. My mother suggested a golden retriever because they supposedly teach...
Dear Past Me: The Ultimate Baby Proofing System for Clueless Dads
Dear Marcus from six months ago. You're currently feeling pretty smug. Your baby is five months old, mostly stays exactly where you put him, and basically acts like a warm, milk-drunk potato. You look around our Portland apartment and think,...