Why Hard Baby Shoes Are a Trap (And What to Use Instead)
There was a moderate amount of blood on my living room rug. It was February in Chicago, the kind of cold that seeps up through the floorboards and makes your bones ache. My son was ten months old and wearing...
Dear Past Priya: The Truth About the Diddy Baby Oil Situation
You're standing in aisle fourteen of the Belmont Target right now. Your toddler is actively trying to consume a cardboard price tag she peeled off the shelf. You're holding a familiar pink bottle of mineral oil because you thought it...
Surviving the drama of your baby's first christmas ornament
I was sitting on the floor of our freezing Chicago apartment with a vacuum in one hand and a bleeding thumb in the other. My mother-in-law had just left. Her gift had lasted exactly four seconds out of the tissue...
Pediatric Nurse Guide: Surviving Your First Baby Wrap Carrier
My mother-in-law told me that tying a baby to my chest would ruin his spine forever and give him flat feet. Then my lactation consultant said if I didn't wear him twenty-four hours a day, he would inevitably develop an...
The completely honest truth about buying baby walking shoes
I was standing in the middle of a high-end boutique holding a pair of tiny, structurally rigid leather high-tops that cost more than my weekly grocery haul. My daughter wasn't even pulling to stand yet, but the footwear had these...
Why We Said No To Pet Turtles (And What To Teach Kids Instead)
We were at the Canton First Monday Trade Days, sweating through our shirts in the brutal Texas heat, when my oldest, Jackson, locked eyes with a plastic tub the size of a cereal bowl. Inside it was a tiny green...
The truth about baby strollers: What I bought vs. what I actually use
Listen. My foot was wedged against the back door of the Red Line train at Fullerton, aggressively kicking the plastic wheel of a luxury travel system that simply refused to fold. The doors were closing. People were staring. My daughter...
The Great Baby Seat Illusion (And What Actually Worked For Us)
It was 87 degrees, I was exactly four days postpartum, and I was sobbing into a half-eaten blueberry muffin in the back of our Honda CR-V. Maya was screaming in her brand new car seat like we were torturing her,...
A Rat in the Playroom and Why I Tossed All Our Plastic Toys
I was holding a lukewarm mug of chai, stepping over the scattered debris of my toddler's morning play session. Beside the television stand, there was a grey lump. At first, I thought it was just a discarded lint ball from...