Sunblock Newborn Panic: What I Wish I Knew About Summer
Dear Past Me from exactly six months ago. Okay, I know. Time is a flat circle. Leo is four now, and Maya is seven, and we're blissfully out of the fragile newborn woods. But six months ago, when my best...
Letter to My Past Self: The Cold Truth About Toddler Wooden Blocks
It's 2:14 in the morning. I'm sitting on the edge of the bathtub rubbing the arch of my left foot where a neon plastic interlocking brick just tried to amputate my heel. I'm writing this to you, Priya from six...
The Truth About Dressing Your Daughter (Without Losing Your Mind)
I was thirty-four weeks pregnant, sitting on the floor of our Chicago apartment, staring at a miniature denim jacket. It was roughly the size of a large grapefruit and as stiff as a piece of cardboard. Someone had given it...
The Truth About Why Your Baby Ignores Their Expensive Playthings
It was December 2017, and my oldest, Leo, was exactly six months old. I remember this vividly because I was wearing black maternity leggings that smelled vaguely of spit-up and a nursing bra I hadn't washed in—you know what, let's...
A Letter To Past Me About The Great Baby Soap Delusion Of 2023
Dear Tom of six months ago. I see you standing in the baby aisle at Boots at 4:30 PM on a dreary Tuesday. You're holding a bottle of lavender-scented, midnight-calming, ultra-foaming wash in your left hand, and a £24 artisanal...
Elektrische Zahnbürste Kinder: Unser absurdes Dental-Debugging
Letzten Sonntag beim Barbecue hier in Portland stand ich mit einem Kleinkind auf dem Arm, das gerade hingebungsvoll auf einer Fernbedienung herumkaute, und bekam von drei verschiedenen Leuten drei komplett gegensätzliche Updates für meine väterliche Firmware aufgedrängt. Meine Mutter meinte,...
Debugging Newborn Babytøj: A First-Time Dad's Guide to V1.0 Hardware
It’s 3:14 AM on our second night home from the hospital, and I’m staring at a tiny, floppy human trying to figure out how to get a rigid cotton shirt over his head. His neck has zero structural integrity. It’s...
The brutal truth about buying baby clothes for boys
I was sweating through my nursing tank trying to force my four-month-old's rigid, chubby little legs into a pair of miniature selvedge denim jeans. My mother-in-law was arriving in ten minutes for a family dinner. He looked like a tiny...
Why I Finally Stopped Buying Personalized Blankets For My Kids
I was dragging a heavy plastic storage bin down the pull-down attic stairs last Tuesday, sweat dripping down the back of my neck in this brutal Texas heat, when the lid completely snapped off. Out spilled a massive, dusty mountain...