Dear Past Marcus: A Debugging Guide to Dressing Your Infant
Dear Marcus of exactly six months ago: I can see you right now. You're standing over the changing table at 3:17 AM in our freezing Portland apartment, sweating profusely while holding a squirming, screaming five-month-old, trying to figure out how...
Baby Sunscreen: The Messy Truth About Mineral Paste Deployment
For the first six months of my daughter's life, I operated under the delusion that a standard Portland overcast day was basically nature's SPF. I figured the thick gray blanket of clouds hanging over the city was a built-in forcefield...
The Complete Dad Guide to Finding a Good Feeding Bottle
I was standing in our dimly lit kitchen at 2:14 AM, holding six separate, dripping plastic components of a single infant vessel, when I accidentally dropped a tiny silicone vent disc down the garbage disposal. The baby was screaming in...
The truth about girls clothing from a tired pediatric nurse
My mother told me I needed to dress my daughter in pure silk to protect her aura from negative energy. The veteran charge nurse on my pediatric floor said to put her in whatever was cheapest at the discount store...
The ugly truth about girls pants and those morning meltdowns
It's 7:14 AM on a Tuesday. I'm sitting on the nursery rug, sweating through my t-shirt, trying to force a stiff, sequined denim leg onto a thrashing two-year-old. She's screaming like I'm taking a bone saw to her shin. I...
The Truth About That Heirloom Crochet Blanket Pattern
It was, like, 3 AM on a Tuesday in 2017 and I was sitting on my living room rug wearing my husband’s stained gray college sweatpants, completely tangled in mint green yarn. I was seven months pregnant with Maya and...
The ugly truth about buying a toddler stroller
I was stuck halfway across the intersection of Belmont and Clark when the right front wheel of my wildly expensive travel system simply gave up. It didn't detach or shatter. It just locked completely sideways, grinding against the salty Chicago...
Why Finding the Right Baby Lotion Feels Like Diffusing a Bomb
My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen when the twins were four days old, wielding a tub of something that smelled violently of synthetic lavender, insisting I needed to grease them up immediately lest they turn into dust. Two hours...
Why Your Baby's Favorite Stuffed Animal Matters (And Terrifies Me)
It was 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, and my husband was out in the driveway in his boxer shorts, aggressively sweeping a flashlight under the seats of our minivan. I was inside, ripping apart the couch cushions and interrogating our...