Debugging the Base Layer: A Dadβs Guide to Bodysuit Blanks
Before my son was born, I received three distinct pieces of base-layer advice that completely crashed my internal logic board. My mother insisted I needed to wrap the baby in three layers of fleece because our Portland house is drafty....
Why My First Baby Cardigan Knitting Pattern Was A Total Disaster
We were somewhere between Waco and Austin on I-35 when the screaming reached a pitch I didn't even know a human vocal cord could produce. I made my husband pull the truck over into a Buc-ee's parking lot, scrambled into...
The great fluffy lie (and why I started googling babywolle kaufen)
The parcel arrived on a wet Tuesday, smelling faintly of lavender and aggressively good intentions. Great Aunt Muriel had knitted the twins matching cardigans. I pulled the first one out of the tissue paper and immediately realised we had a...
Why Japanese Newborn Clothes Actually Save Your Sanity With A Baby
Let me tell you the biggest lie the baby industry ever sold us: that newborns need to wear actual outfits. I'm talking about miniature denim overalls, stiff corduroy suspender sets, and tiny button-down flannels. With my oldest, bless his heart,...
Dear Past Tom: Put Down the Plastic and Get Organic Cotton Bibs
Dear Tom of October last year. You're currently standing at the kitchen sink at 2:14 AM. You're furiously scrubbing a bright orange, polyurethane-coated dribble catcher with an old toothbrush, wondering why it smells faintly of a wet dog that has...
Dear Past Me: The Brutal Truth About Wrapping Babies in Cotton
Dear Tom of twenty-four months ago, It's currently Tuesday evening, and you're standing in the nursery of our flat in Zone 3, staring at a stack of twenty-four identical white squares of fabric your mother-in-law just dropped off. You're holding...
LΓ€tzchen Frottee: A letter to my past self about solid foods
Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the kitchen floor wiping sweet potato puree off the baseboards with a dried-out baby wipe while your son cries because he rubbed it into his left eyebrow. You think this...
Debugging Baby Clothes: The Infant Long Sleeve Romper Upgrade
6:14 AM. Portland is doing that gray, misty drizzle thing it does for nine months of the year. My 11-month-old is currently trying to pull himself up on the edge of the living room coffee table. He is wearing a...
Wie groΓ sind Babydecken? The Absurd Sizing Rules of Blankets
It was three in the morning, our third night home from the hospital, and I was standing in the dimly lit nursery holding a retractable metal tape measure. To my left, Maya was screaming with the kind of red-faced intensity...