Magazine

Dad looking confused at a complicated modern travel system in the rain

The Mobile Sleep Unit: What I Got Wrong About Baby Transport

The rain is coming down sideways in the Trader Joe's parking lot, and I'm standing next to the open trunk of my Subaru, violently jiggling the folding mechanism of a twelve-hundred-dollar rolling chassis while my eleven-month-old screams from the backseat...

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Exhausted dad staring in pure panic at a tiny gold baby bracelet

The Brutal Truth About Baby Bracelets and Why I Totally Panicked

We were somewhere between the second slice of dry Victoria sponge and Florence’s inevitable afternoon meltdown when my wife's great-aunt produced the velvet box. We had survived the actual christening with only a moderate amount of screaming (mostly from me,...

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A fussy baby girl sitting on a blanket trying to pull a large pink bow off her head

The Truth About Baby Bows (And The Red Marks They Leave)

I was standing in the middle of a dusty Texas bluebonnet patch off Highway 290, sweating completely through my shirt while my four-month-old screamed like a tiny, furious baby Bowser. She was thrashing around, clawing at her own head, trying...

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Stressed dad holding a coffee mug and a wooden baby gym

The Sandwich Generation Bug: Debugging Babies and Aging Parents

I was standing in my kitchen at 6:15 AM yesterday, holding a screaming 11-month-old in my left arm while using my right hand to reset my 72-year-old dad's iPad password for the third time this week. He was frustrated because...

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Tired mother rocking a toddler in a dark nursery with a smart speaker nearby

Unpacking the hit me baby one more time lyrics at 3 AM

It was 3:14 AM in Chicago. The wind was doing that thing where it aggressively rattles the apartment windows, and my toddler was running a mild fever from an ear infection. I was operating on maybe three hours of broken...

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Parent holding a toddler's hand while walking outdoors

That Polo G Lyric Sent Me Down a Terrifying Parenting Rabbit Hole

I was elbow-deep in a tub of Sudocrem, trying to wrestle two screaming two-year-old girls into their nighttime nappies, when a playlist I hadn’t updated since 2019 shuffled onto a track by Polo G. I wasn't really listening—I was mostly...

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Baby in a soft green organic cotton long sleeve romper playing on a rug

A Nurse's Guide to the Infant Holiday Wardrobe Trap

My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen last December holding a miniature polyester tuxedo complete with a clip-on bowtie and tiny suspenders. She fully expected my four-month-old to wear this structural engineering marvel to our family dinner. I spent five...

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Sarah holding baby Maya at the beach trying to figure out infant SPF rules

The Huge Infant SPF Lie I Completely Fell For With My First Baby

It was July 2017, I was wearing these god-awful maternity jean shorts that I stubbornly refused to retire, and I was sitting on a sandy towel in Cape May, New Jersey, furiously painting my four-month-old daughter Maya with what can...

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A frustrated mom holding a coffee next to a toddler in a chunky winter sweater.

My Humiliating History With Kids and the Bulky Knit Sweater

It was November 2019, and I was standing outside a Trader Joe's in the freezing rain, wearing yoga pants that definitely had day-old oat milk latte spilled down the thigh. I was trying to wedge my screaming eighteen-month-old, Leo, into...

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