Magazine

Exhausted mom holding a sleeping newborn baby in a dimly lit nursery room

"Baby Please" Go To Sleep: My Messy Fourth Trimester Survival Guide

My mother-in-law told me to put a scoop of rice cereal in the nighttime bottle at two weeks old so the baby would sleep. The hospital lactation consultant told me if I even looked at a silicone pacifier I'd ruin...

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A tired mom holding a tiny feathered chick and a syringe of formula in a messy kitchen.

Dear Past Jess: The Brutal Truth About Raising A Baby Parrot

There's weird, lukewarm yellow formula cemented into my hair, the digital food thermometer is blinking an angry red 106 degrees at me, and I'm sitting on the cold linoleum of the laundry room floor at two in the morning desperately...

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Exhausted mom holding a crying congested newborn baby in a dark nursery

The 2 AM Snot Panic and the Alligator Wrestling Match

I was sitting in the rocking chair at two in the morning, holding my oldest kid when he was just three weeks old, and he sounded exactly like a forty-pound pug who had just run a marathon in the Texas...

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Hospital birth certificate paperwork with a pen resting on top of it

The absolute exhaustion of finding truly unique baby names

The lady from medical records was tapping her pen against her clipboard, shifting her weight from one Dansko clog to the other. I was forty-eight hours postpartum, sweating through a hospital gown that smelled like iodine, holding the birth certificate...

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Wooden blocks spelling a baby name next to a neutral organic cotton bodysuit

The Real Deal on Baby Name Meanings Without Losing Your Mind

I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant, sweating through a maternity tank top in the middle of July, when the great naming summit occurred in my living room. My mom looked me dead in the eye and said I needed to pick...

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A stressed mother looking at her phone while holding a baby

Why I Let a Computer Name My Kids and Tossed the Giant Books

I was sitting on the floor of our half-painted nursery in the dead of a Texas July, sweating through my maternity leggings, when I aggressively hurled a 1,000-page naming dictionary across the room at my husband. It missed him, thankfully,...

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A messy living room table with a half-filled baby journal and photos

The Truth About Finishing A Baby Memory Book Without Crying

I was sitting cross-legged on the nursery floor at two in the morning with a glue stick in one hand and a stack of blurry hospital photos in the other, absolutely sobbing because I couldn't remember the exact circumference of...

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A frustrated millennial mom drinking coffee while her kids play

That time my seven-year-old demanded we get a baby leopard

It was Tuesday around 4:15 PM, raining, and I was wearing those grey sweatpants with the mysterious bleach stain on the left thigh. Maya, who's seven and currently in her aggressively vocal animal rights phase, dropped her neon pink backpack...

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Sarah wearing scuffed camel Sézane Mary Janes at a messy playground

Are the Viral Sézane Paula Babies Actually Wearable for Real Moms?

It was Tuesday, 8:14 AM. I was standing in my kitchen wearing black leggings that definitely had yesterday's crusty oatmeal smeared across the left thigh, clutching my third cup of lukewarm coffee like it was a life raft. My husband...

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