How a Baby Horse Name Crashed My Naming Spreadsheet
I was staring at row 842 of my master Google Sheet when the system finally broke down. Column A contained the potential name. Column B tracked the syllable count. Column C was tied to a Python script I wrote to...
The Night I Searched Baby Kxtten and Broke My Tech Dad Brain
The thermostat was locked at exactly 69.5 degrees, the ambient white noise machine was humming at a steady 45 decibels, and the 11-month-old had finally ceased her evening operational errors. I was sitting on the living room rug, eating cold...
Why Tiny Panther Movies and Reptile Pets Break Baby's System
I was holding exactly one half of a mashed banana when my seven-year-old nephew, visiting from Seattle for the weekend, loudly demanded we acquire a baby panther. It was 7:15 AM on a Saturday. My eleven-month-old son was currently mashing...
Dear Past Me: The Ultimate Baby Proofing System for Clueless Dads
Dear Marcus from six months ago. You're currently feeling pretty smug. Your baby is five months old, mostly stays exactly where you put him, and basically acts like a warm, milk-drunk potato. You look around our Portland apartment and think,...
How a Single Bunny Blanket Took Our Entire Family Hostage
I'm currently upside down in the backseat of our Prius with a flashlight clamped between my teeth. It's 11:43 PM. My wife is standing on the porch holding a screaming eleven-month-old, and we're tearing the car apart because we lost...
The great baby silicone migration: a dad's troubleshooting guide
My mother-in-law texted me a picture of a 1980s plastic playpen yesterday, assuring me that my wife gnawed on the rails for months and turned out completely fine. Ten minutes later, my neighborβwho brews her own rainwater kombuchaβleaned over our...
Buy Buy Baby Registry: What I Wish I Knew Before Building v1.0
I'm currently sitting on my living room floor, surrounded by a mountain of collapsed cardboard, trying to figure out how to process a return for a piece of modular stroller suspension that I clearly ordered in a sleep-deprived fugue state....
The Stressed Dad Rules for Used Baby Gear and Sleep Loss
Standing in a strangerβs soggy driveway in southeast Portland at 9:15 PM, rain soaking through my fleece, trying to fold a secondhand stroller that smelled faintly of old milk and despair. This was my absolute breaking point. My wife, Sarah,...
Is the Job of a Brand Ambassador Actually Worth the Stress?
I'm currently wedged between our coffee table and a dangerously overloaded laundry basket, holding a smartphone at a 45-degree angle while making desperate clicking noises with my tongue. My 11-month-old son is supposed to be interacting thoughtfully with a visually...