Why Your Back Deserves a Real Baby Recliner (And What to Skip)
It was 3:14 AM, and I was glued to an antique wooden rocking chair that my mother-in-law graciously insisted we use for our firstborn. Jackson, who's now five and is my permanent cautionary tale for basically every parenting mistake I’ve...
Why baby jane bourbon is a childproofing nightmare
When my son's first tooth started aggressively pushing its way through his lower gums last month, I received three distinct pieces of troubleshooting advice. My dad, operating on legacy parenting code from 1989, told me to just rub a drop...
Dear past Jess: Put the eucalyptus baby blue plant down now
Dear Jess from six months ago. You're currently standing in the floral section at H-E-B, balancing a squirming six-month-old on your hip while your toddler tries to systematically crush every bag of tortilla chips in the next aisle. You look...
Letter to past me: finding an easter outfit baby boy will tolerate
Dear Priya of six months ago. You're currently standing in the toddler section of Macy's on State Street, staring at a three-piece tweed suit made for a human who can't yet walk. You're sweating through your scrubs after a twelve-hour...
The Messy Truth About Trying to Dream Feed Baby Every Night
My foot found the only rogue plastic dinosaur left on the rug at 10:43 PM. I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper, balancing a warm bottle of pumped milk in my left hand while trying not to breathe...
So, Can Your Newborn Really Be Born With Teeth? (My Freakout)
The biggest, most universally accepted myth about giving birth is that you're going to be handed this perfect, squishy, entirely gummy little blob of a human. I fully believed this. I thought I had at least six solid months of...
RealCare Baby Simulators: The Brutal Truth About How They Work
I found it wedged between a moldy juice box and a soccer cleat in the back of my sister's Honda Odyssey. A stiff, heavy, unblinking plastic infant. My sixteen-year-old niece was slouched in the passenger seat, staring at it with...
My Honest Take On That Half Baby Half Kid Meme Phase of Parenting
I was sitting on the cold tile of my bathroom floor in Chicago at two in the morning. My son was outside the door, doing that specific hyperventilating sob because I had peeled his banana. He asked me to peel...
Choosing safe gold earrings studs for babies without panicking
My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen with a pair of twenty-two karat hoops, telling me it was tradition and that I was overthinking it. A few hours later, my old charge nurse texted me to say that piercing a...