That Time a Baby Fox Invaded Our Garden (And Teething Saved Us)
It was 6:13 AM on a Tuesday, and I was standing in the kitchen wearing one sock, watching my daughter aggressively gnaw on the corner of our faux-mid-century sideboard like a starved termite. I glanced out the glass doors hoping...
Why I Tossed My Plastic Toys For A Wooden Spielbogen Baby Gym
It was 2:00 PM on a Tuesday, and I was sitting on my living room rug nursing a lukewarm coffee while a giant plastic jungle gym flashed neon green lights directly into my six-week-old's eyeballs. The thing was blaring some...
Surviving the great baby toy invasion without losing your mind
My mother-in-law arrived on a Tuesday afternoon with a battery-operated plastic farmyard that screamed distorted animal noises at 120 decibels, proudly declaring it highly educational for the twins. The very next day, my heavily bearded friend who lives in Hackney...
Why that classic seated baby walker is actually a terrible idea
Last Diwali, my mother-in-law cornered me near the samosas with a brightly colored plastic catalog she had acquired from god knows where. She flipped to a dog-eared page and pointed to a massive plastic saucer surrounded by wheels and covered...
The Only Things You Actually Need For A New Baby (And What To Skip)
"You absolutely need the wipe warmer," my sister-in-law hissed across the table, leaning in like she was giving me state secrets. "If a cold wipe touches that baby's bottom, you'll never sleep again." "Don't buy anything," my hippie neighbor countered...
Toxic glue and the truth about aesthetic baby holzspielzeug
I'm standing at the stove at two in the morning, watching a forty-dollar organic maple rattle slowly disintegrate in a pot of boiling water. The water is turning a suspicious murky brown. A smell like burning nail polish remover is...
Why I Finally Ditched the Neon Plastic Baby Play Gym
It was a Tuesday, roughly 2:15 PM in late October 2017. Maya was exactly fourteen weeks old, and I was wearing a pair of dark grey maternity leggings that I had absolutely no intention of retiring anytime soon. They had...
Finding the right Rassel für Babys without losing your mind
When Maya was about twelve weeks old, my mother-in-law marched into my kitchen and handed me a literal sterling silver rattle that weighed as much as a kettlebell. "It's an heirloom," she whispered reverently, tracing the engraved initials of some...
Why a Basic Rassel Toy Beat My High-Tech Baby Parenting Theories
I'm sitting on the living room rug surrounded by three different glowing screens, a Wi-Fi enabled bassinet that tracks micro-movements, and a massive spreadsheet charting exactly how many ounces of milk my son has consumed since Tuesday. On the main...