The absolute best yarn for baby blanket knitting and buying
I was thirty-four weeks pregnant, sitting heavily on my living room rug in the dead of a Chicago winter, surrounded by four giant garbage bags of yarn. My mother-in-law had just dropped them off. She had this grand vision of...
When Can You Finally Stop Burping Your Baby?
It was 3:14 in the morning with my oldest, Carter. He was entirely milk-drunk, limp as a wet noodle, and dead asleep on my shoulder. And there I was, wide awake, rhythmically pounding on his tiny back like I was...
What a Tiny Baby Lemur Taught Me About Motherhood and Survival
Don't, under any circumstances, let your highly impressionable four-year-old watch a nature documentary about the rainforest forty-five minutes before lights out, unless you want to spend the next two weeks of your life explaining why a baby lemur can't sleep...
Why That Cute Miniature Sheep Trend Almost Broke My Sanity
It was 2:14 PM on a Tuesday, and I was standing in ankle-deep Vermont mud holding a half-empty Yeti of room-temperature coffee, watching my 18-month-old daughter Maya actively attempt to French kiss a miniature farm animal. My friend Jen had...
Surviving the Holidays: The Truth About Baby Boy Christmas Outfits
I'm sitting on the floor of my sister-in-law's guest room in Naperville, sweating entirely through a silk blouse. It's December 24th, two years ago. I'm holding a rigid, red velvet baby blazer that costs more than my own winter coat,...
How to Pick a Baby Boy Baptism Outfit for a Catholic Church
Father Michael is speaking at length about the concept of original sin, but I'm entirely focused on preventing my two-year-old daughter, Florence, from eating a laminated hymn book. In the pew ahead of me, my sister is holding my six-month-old...
Surviving Newborn Sleep and Marriage Without Losing Your Mind
My mother-in-law was standing in my kitchen holding a frozen cabbage leaf, telling me to just put the baby in a laundry basket in the closet if he wouldn't stop crying. My best friend, who lives in a totally different...
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....
The ugly truth about deep cleaning your reusable cloth diapers
I was standing over the changing table last November, the Chicago wind rattling the windowpanes, pulling a supposedly fresh cloth diaper off my toddler. It smelled exactly like the gerbil enclosure at a rundown pet store. I had washed that...