The truth about being my baby's daddy: A first-time dad log
I'm currently staring at my 11-month-old daughter while she aggressively tries to jam a wooden block into my lukewarm coffee mug. The biggest lie they tell you about fatherhood is that the "dad instincts" will automatically download into your brain...
Newborn Baby Eyesight: When Do Their Optical Sensors Boot Up?
I was holding him roughly three hours after the emergency C-section, doing that weird head-bobbing thing people do when they want a golden retriever to look at them. He just stared blankly through my left earlobe. My wife, still half-numb...
Surviving the Logistics of Boy Baby Shower Invites
It was 11 PM on a Tuesday. I had a Google Sheet open with column headers for "Paper Weight (GSM)" and "Postage Cost Variance." My wife, Sarah, who was seven months pregnant at the time, walked into the kitchen holding...
Watching The 1995 Baby-Sitters Club Movie As An Overthinking Dad
My mom told me the absolute best way to get a break from parenting is to just hire the 14-year-old kid who lives across the street because "she seems nice and probably knows CPR." My lead developer, a guy who...
The Tesla babies program and my 3am scrolling spiral
It was 3:42 am on a Tuesday, and I was pinned beneath Twin A, who was rhythmically exhaling sour milk vapour directly into my collarbone. The house was locked in that heavy, unnatural silence that only exists just before a...
The midnight origami crisis: A letter to my past swaddling self
Dear Past Tom, You're currently sitting on the edge of a plastic-covered mattress in the maternity ward of St Thomas' Hospital, staring at a screaming, red-faced potato named Alice, while her twin sister, Lucy, is somehow already escaping the blanket...
The 3 AM Monitor Panic: Surviving The Stomach Sleeping Phase
The glowing screen of the baby monitor was blinding in the pitch-black bedroom, and my heart was hammering against my ribs at roughly 140 beats per minute. It was 3:14 AM. The temperature in the nursery was exactly 69.4 degrees,...
How the Seiko Baby Alpinist Survived My First Year of Fatherhood
My left wrist vibrated with a Slack notification from my engineering manager right at the exact moment my son sneezed a mouthful of mashed sweet potato across my chest. It was a Tuesday, roughly 6:14 AM. I was wearing my...
Searching For The Real Love Baby Connection At Eleven Months
My mother-in-law told me that if I pick him up every single time he cries, I'm going to completely ruin his operating system permanently. My barista, entirely unprompted while handing me my third espresso of the morning, told me that...