Magazine

Clueless software engineer dad looking at baby registry must haves on dual monitors

Decoding Baby Registry Must Haves Without Crashing Your Brain

It's precisely 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, my mechanical keyboard is clacking, my dual-monitor setup is glowing with the intensity of a thousand suns, and I've exactly forty-seven browser tabs open trying to parse the flow rate variations of infant...

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A mother sitting on the grass next to a shallow backyard tub

My pediatrician's brutal rules for surviving summer water play

I was standing in my tiny Chicago backyard with a garden hose in one hand and a giant, deflating aesthetic swan in the other. My son was barely four months old, shivering violently in a designer swimsuit that cost more...

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A dad looking stressed while holding an 11-month-old baby near a wooden play area

Surviving the Lava Monster Phase: A Dad's Take on Baby Moana

The haptic feedback on my Apple Watch woke me from a sleep-deprived trance at exactly 3:14 PM on a Saturday. It was a decibel warning. My living room had just surpassed 90 decibels, which my watch helpfully noted could cause...

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Baby covered in mashed sweet potato staring confused at a broccoli floret

What I Wish I Knew Before Feeding My Baby Real Food

Dear Marcus from six months ago: Right now, you're staring at a piece of steamed broccoli, sweating through your gray t-shirt, completely convinced that handing this tiny green tree to your six-month-old daughter is a catastrophic user error. You've spent...

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Toddler playing a baby hazel app on an iPad in the dark bedroom

That Night a Baby Hazel App Cost Me Nine Bucks and Total Sanity

I was elbow-deep in printing shipping labels for my Etsy shop at ten o'clock on a Tuesday night, entirely convinced my four-year-old was dead asleep in his room, when my Apple watch buzzed with an $8.99 charge from the App...

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A toddler playing with wooden toys on a mat instead of doing sports drills.

The truth about baby gronk age and our toxic prodigy obsession

The six-year-old was sitting on the examination table with an ice pack on his knee, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else on earth. His dad was standing next to him in full athletic gear, holding a clipboard and...

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A baby wearing a slightly too small designer polo shirt while playing on a playmat

The Real Truth About Ralph Lauren Baby: Are Tiny Polos Worth It?

I was standing over my kitchen sink at 6:42 AM on a Tuesday, wearing fleece sweatpants I had definitely slept in for three consecutive nights, frantically scrubbing bright orange sweet potato mash out of a pristine, white cable-knit sweater. It...

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Tired mother holding a baby with a spit-up cloth over her shoulder

The ugly truth about reflux in babies and the endless laundry

A mom came into the pediatric ER at two in the morning a few years ago carrying a bassinet mattress that looked like it had been constructed into a crude ski ramp. She was exhausted, practically vibrating with anxiety, and...

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Marcus holding his screaming infant in a dark nursery next to a glowing white noise machine.

Checking For Shaken Baby Syndrome Symptoms At 3 AM Is Terrifying

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and the decibel meter app on my Apple Watch was aggressively tapping my wrist to warn me about prolonged exposure to loud environments. My son was hitting 92 decibels. I was doing this...

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