Magazine

A glowing baby einstein sea dreams soother attached to a wooden crib

My toxic relationship with that glowing Baby Einstein aquarium

It's 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in November. I'm standing barefoot in the hallway, wearing a stained nursing tank that I still haven't washed even though my son Leo is three and Maya is eight months old, and I'm practically...

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Toddler twin girls in London flat playing with soft baby dolls on the floor

Why baby dolls took over my flat (and what the science says)

I'm currently staring at a small, disembodied plastic leg poking out from beneath our sofa. It belongs to ‘Baby Susan’, a doll who has suffered more blunt force trauma in the past three weeks than an amateur rugby player. If...

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A frustrated parent installing a convertible car seat in the back of a small SUV.

The Real Story Behind Keeping Your Kid Alive in the Backseat

The discharge nurse was watching me. We were on level three of the Northwestern Memorial parking garage, the Chicago wind was howling through the concrete pillars, and my husband was weeping silently while trying to wrestle a five-pound infant into...

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A baby covered in meat juices chewing happily on a pork rib bone.

The Absurd Reality of Handing Your Infant a Rack of Baby Back Ribs

I'm sitting across the dining table watching one of my six-month-old twin daughters hold a massive, grease-slicked pork bone in her tiny, dimpled fist. She is gnawing on it with the intense, primal focus of a prehistoric hunter who has...

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A disassembled toy doll next to a sink full of soapy water and a scrub brush

The ugly truth about that baby alive doll hiding in your playroom

I'm standing over my kitchen sink at eleven at night with a pair of surgical tweezers, trying to extract a solid black clump of fermented synthetic cherry mush from the plastic esophagus of a toy. This is not how I...

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Exhausted mom in stained sweatpants holding a baby with dry skin

Surviving The Ash Baby Look And Other Sweaty Newborn Disasters

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was staring at Leo under the harsh bathroom vanity light, wearing a nursing bra that smelled aggressively of sour milk and my husband Dave's oversized college sweatpants. Leo was three weeks...

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A stressed parent looking at a mobile phone and a positive pregnancy test

The 3am Accutane Baby Panic: Skincare, Pregnancy, and Paranoia

The bathroom tiles were freezing against my bare legs, but the cold barely registered because I was staring at two things: a plastic stick with two faint pink lines, and a half-empty tube of prescription acne cream. It was 3:17...

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Marcus staring at a cloudy plastic baby bottle under harsh kitchen lights

The Great Plastic Illusion: A Dad's Guide to Baby Bottles

I was holding a six-month-old plastic bottle up to the harsh LED light of my kitchen exhaust hood at two in the morning when I realized something was terribly wrong. Next to it on the counter sat a brand new...

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A soft organic bamboo rainbow blanket folded in a crib

What Is a Rainbow Baby? The Beautiful, Messy, Anxious Reality

I was standing in the wildly unflattering fluorescent lighting of a Buc-ee's bathroom off I-35 when I saw the two pink lines. My oldest, who's a walking cautionary tale of why you shouldn't let a toddler eat a powdered donut...

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