The Wild Strength of a Grip Baby (And What Not to Do)
My oldest son, bless his heart, came out of the womb clutching the collar of my hospital gown like he owed somebody money. He had this vice grip that left tiny red half-moon fingernail marks on my chest, and if...
The Only Sane Guide to Finding the Best Baby Walker Right Now
When Maya was eight months old, we went to a family barbecue where I received three entirely different lectures about baby mobility in the span of twenty minutes. My mother-in-law cornered me by the potato salad to insist that I...
Why the Baby's Day Movie Gives Me Major Panic Attacks Now
I was elbow-deep in a basket of aggressively stained toddler socks yesterday afternoon, desperately trying to find a single matching pair, when my husband walked into the living room and slapped a DVD on the coffee table. Heβd found it...
The Great Eye Colour Waiting Game: A London Dad's Guide to Melanin
My mother-in-law leaned over the Moses basket on day three and declared with absolute certainty that Twin B's eyes were definitely turning brown because she spotted some microscopic muddy flecks near the pupil. The NHS health visitor popped round on...
When Do Babies Finally Learn To Hold Their Own Bottle?
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing a stained College of Charleston t-shirt that smelled heavily of sour milk and sheer exhaustion. Leo, who was about five months old at the time, was doing this infuriating...
The Honest Truth About When Your Baby Will Finally Say Mama
My mother-in-law cornered me by the spinach dip station at my cousin's baby shower when my son Leo was seven months old and confidently declared that because he was currently blowing spit bubbles, he was practically reading. "He's making the...
Why Looking Up Movies For Your Infant Son Is A Terrible Idea
My phone buzzed at two in the morning during a particularly brutal night feed last week. It was a text from my cousin in Seattle, containing a screenshot of a Hulu search page and a question about whether a specific...
The Truth About Controlling Your Baby's First Steps
I'm hunched over at a ninety-degree angle, my lower back screaming, holding Maya's tiny hands straight up in the air like she's a miniature hostage. It's, like, a Tuesday at 9 AM, I'm on my third cup of lukewarm coffee,...
A Patagonia Baby Reality Check: The Gear And The Travel Truth
The wind in southern Chile doesn't just blow, y'all. It actively tries to rip the hope right out of your chest. There I was, standing on a rocky trail that looked like the surface of the moon, holding my nine-month-old,...