Magazine
Surviving the U.S. Infant Passport Process Without Losing Your Mind
The fluorescent lights at the pharmacy were humming a specific pitch of anxiety while a nineteen-year-old named Tyler adjusted a digital camera. I was holding my squirming four-month-old up by his armpits, trying desperately to keep my own hands out...
What I Wish I Knew About Once Upon a Farm Baby Food
Listen to me, Jess from six months ago. You're standing in the grocery store aisle with three kids hanging off the cart, staring at a little mini-fridge section that definitely wasn't there when you had your first baby. You're tired,...
The Truth About Old Navy Baby Clothes and Toddler Mud
Don't, under any circumstances, dress two newly-mobile toddlers in matching cream linen rompers for a casual stroll through a damp London park in November. I did this exactly once, under the tragic, sleep-deprived delusion that I could maintain my pre-kids...
Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner: A Dad's Guide To The Reverse Gear
It was exactly 6:14 PM, the thermostat was holding steady at 68.5 degrees, and I was watching my 11-month-old son slowly reverse himself into the precise 90-degree angle where the drywall meets the glass sliding door. He looked like a...
Why the Nirvana baby made me delete my entire Instagram feed
Hey Jess from last October. You're sitting on the bath mat right now, aren't you? The kids are miraculously distracted by an empty Amazon box in the hallway, your coffee is cold on the sink, and your thumb is hovering...
Why I Stopped Trying to Replicate the Niche Chinese Babies Trend
It's 6:43 AM on a Tuesday, and Florence has gone fully rigid, achieving a level of plank-like stiffness that would genuinely impress an Olympic gymnast, purely to prevent me from putting her left arm into a winter coat. In a...
Total System Crash: Troubleshooting Our New Born Baby on Night Four
Itβs 3:14 AM on our fourth night home, and I'm standing over the bassinet holding my phone flashlight like an idiot, trying to count the chest rises of a 7-pound human. My wife is asleep for the first time in...
Raising Kids, Not Nepo Babies: A Rural Texas Mom's Reality Check
I'm sitting on the floor of my living room, staring at a literal mountain of brightly colored, battery-operated plastic garbage that my oldest child just received for his third birthday, and he's crying. I mean real, full-body, gasping-for-air sobs. Why?...
Keeping your real newborn alive during the plastic toy craze
My mother-in-law told me to rub mustard oil in the baby's ears to prevent winter infections. My old charge nurse swore I had to wake him every two hours on the dot or his blood sugar would tank. The barista...