The truth about rubber baby buggy bumpers and modern stroller safety
We were somewhere on Fullerton Avenue when the sidewalk just ended. It didn't taper off or gracefully transition into a crosswalk. It just turned into a crater of jagged concrete and exposed rebar, a true Chicago masterpiece. My toddler was...
My 3 AM Battle with the Solly Baby: 15 Feet of Fabric vs Dad
Before my son arrived, everyone had a totally conflicting theory about how I was supposed to carry him around. My sister-in-law told me to just buy a canvas backpack thing with heavy plastic buckles and strap him to my chest...
There Goes My Baby: Surviving the Absurdity of the Newborn Phase
I'm standing in our freezing London kitchen at 4:12 in the morning, holding what appears to be a very angry, red-faced sweet potato wrapped in a slightly damp muslin cloth, when my phone, completely unprompted, shuffles to an R&B playlist...
How to Build Your Amazon Registry Baby List Without Losing It
I was thirty-two weeks pregnant with my oldest, Beau, sitting on the faux-wood laminate floor of our tiny rental house, sobbing hysterically because the internet told me I needed a three-hundred-dollar wipe warmer. The nearest big-box store was a forty-five-minute...
My honest guide to receiving blankets versus swaddles at 2 AM
I was aggressively stuffing those white and pink-striped hospital blankets into my duffel bag while my husband stood by the door acting as a lookout. I was a pediatric nurse for five years before having my son. I knew exactly...
Dear Past Jess: The Brutal Truth About That Graco Baby Swing
It's 2:14 AM. You're sitting on the edge of the guest bed in your milk-stained maternity sweatpants, desperately scrolling the internet with your phone brightness turned all the way down so you don't wake the toddler in the next room....
My kid turned into a highlighter (and other early release bugs)
It was day three of parenthood, and I was holding my naked son up to a rain-streaked Portland window like Rafiki presenting Simba, convinced that forty-five seconds of overcast Pacific Northwest UV radiation would magically fix his liver. My wife,...
The Unfiltered Reality of Welcoming Baby Number Three
I was sweating through my favorite vintage band shirt in the middle of an August afternoon, staring at the back seat of my SUV with a tape measure in one hand and a half-eaten string cheese in the other. I...
Why I Stopped Trusting the Box My Baby Rocking Chair Came In
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in 2017, and I was standing in my dark kitchen wearing a nursing bra that smelled aggressively like sour milk and Dave’s oversized college sweatpants, staring at this beige, gently vibrating infant seat...