What a Screaming Backyard Wild Bird Taught Me About Motherhood
It was 102 degrees in the shade, the kind of Texas summer afternoon where the air feels like hot soup and you sweat just blinking, and I was up to my elbows in diaper cream when the back screen door...
The Great Baby Oil Bottle Disaster: What I Actually Know Now
It's twenty past midnight, and I'm currently holding what feels exactly like a greased watermelon. Twin One (who used to be the calm one, though we’ve long abandoned that classification) has just executed a flawless, aggressive barrel roll on the...
Reliable Baby Monitors with Camera Under $100 That Actually Work
It was two in the morning and I was staring at a buffering wheel on my phone screen while my router blinked an angry red in the hallway. My expensive, top-of-the-line smart camera was attempting a firmware update right as...
Why Late-Night Google Is the Enemy of Natural Baby Care
I'm sitting on the floor of the nursery at 3:14 AM, the harsh blue glow of my smartphone illuminating a stain on my jogging bottoms that I'm fiercely praying is just mashed sweet potato. I'm reading a parenting forum post...
Debugging My 11-Month-Old Baby's First Guitar Playing Setup
Yesterday at exactly 4:13 PM, my daughter attempted to eat the low E string off my Martin acoustic dreadnought. I was sitting on the rug in our living room—which I keep at a very precise, data-backed 68.5 degrees for best...
The Complete Dad Guide to Surviving Baby Girl Easter Outfits
The great tulle disaster of last month taught me a very hard lesson about infant formalwear. My wife was out with friends, and I decided to run a beta test on a highly structured, aggressively ruffled dress my mother-in-law sent...
Apocalyptic Parenting: Surviving the Tuesday Dystopia
The biggest lie they peddle in those damp, aggressively brightly lit NHS antenatal classes is that the primary threat to your child’s existence is external. The cheerful woman with the laminated diagrams heavily implies that your main job as a...
The truth about heirloom infant jewelry and unexpected search histo...
The clasp on the 22-karat gold chain was so tiny it took three aunties and a pair of tweezers to fasten it around my six-month-old's neck. We were at a family gathering, the air thick with the smell of roasting...
Dear Past Jess: The Messy Truth About Board Books for Babies
Dear Jess from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the peeling linoleum of the kitchen floor, surrounded by three baskets of unfolded laundry, staring at your youngest child. You just had to stick your index finger into his mouth...