How I Found the Right Baby Back Ribs Done Temp for My Toddler
Smoke is stinging my left eye, my digital meat thermometer is flashing 145 degrees, and Sarah is holding our 11-month-old who's currently attempting to eat his own foot on the patio. The grill is hissing. My phone is buzzing with...
The Late-Night Google Search That Broke My Brain
It was 11:42 PM on a Tuesday, and I was frantically debugging my son's upcoming Halloween costume from the faint glow of my phone screen while he slept in the next room. He's 11 months old now, which means he's...
What I Learned After Panicking Over Baby Lady Bugs
Whatever you do, please don't scream, snatch your eleven-month-old up like a football, and attempt to aggressively stomp a tiny, spiky, black-and-orange alien insect into the damp Portland mud while wearing your only clean pair of socks. I executed this...
The Great Baby Pesto Disaster (And How To Actually Do It Right)
It was 6:42 PM on a Tuesday, and my kitchen looked like a lawnmower had exploded indoors. My wife was holding a wet washcloth, staring at me with that highly specific look she gets when I've confidently executed a task...
Help! Baby Rolls Onto Stomach While Sleeping But Can't Roll Back
"Let them figure it out," my mother-in-law told me while aggressively stirring her Earl Grey tea in my kitchen, acting like infant survival was just character building. "Just roll him back immediately or he'll suffocate," the excessively perky mom in...
Why I Completely Misjudged The Baby Shower Word Search As A Dad
I was sitting in a folding chair in our Portland backyard, balancing a paper plate of half-eaten potato salad on my knee, staring at a grid of 144 random letters on a piece of recycled cardstock. Across the yard, Sarah's...
When Your Baby Squirrel Is Good At Everything (Except Sleeping)
It was a Tuesday. 2:14 PM. I was standing in my kitchen wearing black leggings that hadn't seen the inside of a washing machine since the previous Thursday and a nursing bra that was basically just a loose suggestion of...
The "Baby Three" Elf Plush Trend is Actually a Nightmare
It’s 7:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I'm standing in my kitchen wearing my husband Dave's college sweatshirt that has a highly questionable yogurt stain on the sleeve. I'm clutching a mug of lukewarm French roast like it’s a life...
The 3 AM Meltdown That Made Me Finally Buy a Real Gum Teether
It was 3:17 AM in a freezing January, and I was sitting on the floor of my mother-in-law’s guest room in Connecticut wearing a stained pair of maternity sweatpants that I absolutely should have retired two years prior. Maya was...