Magazine
Stop Writing Terrifying Advice In Your Baby Shower Cards
Picture this. You're trapped on a velvet armchair in a room that smells aggressively of buttercream and eucalyptus. Twenty women, ranging from your childhood best friend to your partnerβs distant aunt, are staring at you. You're sweating through your maternity...
Writing Honest Baby Shower Greetings When Your Mind is Blank
Dear Jess from six months ago, I know exactly where you're right now. You're sitting in the sweltering driver's seat of your Honda Odyssey in the Target parking lot, the air conditioner blasting directly into your face while you try...
Surviving the Dress Code: A Messy Guide to Baby Shower Guest Outfits
When my cousin got pregnant last spring, I texted three different people asking what the hell I was supposed to wear to her backyard celebration, and the responses were honestly useless. My mother-in-law told me I needed a pastel sheath...
The absolute chaos of deploying a modern baby shower invite
I'm staring at a Google Sheet with 64 rows of mailing addresses, and my brain is completely buffering. My wife, Sarah, is sitting next to me on the couch, asking if we should upgrade to the 120-pound matte cardstock or...
The 2 AM Envelope Meltdown and Other Baby Shower Realities
It was exactly 11:43 PM on a Tuesday, and I was sitting on my living room rug wearing my husbandβs stained college sweatpants, aggressively stress-eating cold leftover macaroni and cheese out of a Tupperware container. Spread out around me were...
Debugging Baby Shower Messages: A Clueless Dad's Before and After
It's 11:14 PM, the nursery thermostat is locked exactly at 69.5 degrees because my wife insists that's the good sleep environment, and I'm staring at a blank piece of cardstock. The baby monitor on my desk looks like a paranormal...
The brutal truth about picking baby shower places in the summer
It was ninety-four degrees in the Lincoln Park Conservatory when I realized my sister-in-law had made a terrible mistake. She had booked a corner of the botanical garden for my baby shower because the natural lighting filtering through the glass...
Dear Past Marcus: Please Stop Overcomplicating the Baby Registry
You're currently sweating through your vintage Timbers hoodie, keeping nineteen browser tabs open, hovering your cursor over an "Add to Cart" button for a Bluetooth-enabled diaper pail. I need you to step away from the keyboard. It's me. Future Marcus....
Surviving the pink tulle trap of modern girl baby showers
I was exactly twenty-eight weeks pregnant, sitting on the floor of my Chicago apartment, surrounded by three garbage bags of neon pink tulle. My mother-in-law had just left after proudly declaring my upcoming baby show would be a princess paradise....