Magazine

Exhausted parents looking at a complicated written birth plan on a table.

Megan Walerius, Birth Plans, and the Chaos of Expectations

When we announced the twins were on the way, I received three distinct pieces of advice within a forty-five-minute window at my local pub. My mother, clutching a small glass of sherry, told us to simply let nature take its...

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Jess folding organic cotton Linxia baby clothes on a messy living room couch

Raising A Linxia Baby: The Unfiltered Truth About Newborn Life

I was standing in the Target baby aisle at 9 PM on a Tuesday, completely dead inside, while my oldest son Jackson screamed against my chest in a carrier that I was probably wearing wrong. He was three weeks old....

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A frustrated mom holding a toddler in a stiff holiday suit.

The disaster of picking a baby boy easter outfit

It was ten in the morning on a Sunday and I was staring at a mustard-yellow blowout that had completely breached the hull of a forty-dollar miniature linen suit. My mother-in-law was knocking on the powder room door, asking if...

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Marcus looking at a tiny white baby termite on the bathroom floor with a flashlight

Dear Past Marcus: Those Aren't Pale Ants, They're Baby Termites

Dear Marcus of exactly six months ago: Put down the flashlight. That tiny, pale, squirming thing you're currently poking with a cotton swab at 2:14 AM on the bathroom tile is not an albino ant. It's a baby termite. Don't...

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Baby wearing a soft organic cotton bodysuit sitting quietly in a church pew.

The Honest Truth About Your Baby Dedication (And Surviving It)

Let me paint a picture for y'all. It's Sunday morning, roughly 10:15 AM. I'm sitting in the second pew, sweating clean through my nice silk blouse, while my oldest sonβ€”who was supposed to look like a literal angel from heavenβ€”is...

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A tired parent holding a baby while a smartphone plays Daniel Caesar's Baby Blue track in a dimly lit nursery

The 3AM Savior: Decoding Baby Blue Daniel Caesar Lyrics

There's a very specific type of despair that sets in around 3:14 AM when one twin is screaming because the shadows on the wall are looking at her funny, and the other is methodically attempting to ingest the cardboard spine...

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A tired parent attempting to burp a baby over their shoulder

When Do You Actually Stop Burping a Baby? An Honest Dad Guide

Dear Tom from six months agoβ€”or rather, let's cast our minds all the way back to the dark trenches when the twins were tiny, because time is a flat, milk-stained circle and my trauma has simply manifested as a letter...

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Confused pregnant mom drinking coffee looking at a baby ultrasound photo

When Can You Find Out the Gender of a Baby? A Messy Guide

When I was barely six weeks pregnant with Leo, sitting at a lukewarm brunch while desperately trying not to hurl into my overpriced oatmeal and clutching my third decaf coffee like a lifeline, I got three entirely different timelines for...

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A baby gnawing on a large spare rib bone while sitting on a patterned bamboo blanket

The Great BBQ Debate: Ribs and Baby-Led Weaning

Summer in Chicago means the lake breeze is sticky and someone is always firing up a smoker in a park. We were at a family cookout near Montrose Beach last July when my husband's uncle handed my eight-month-old a massive,...

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