Magazine

Mom drinking coffee looking nervously out the patio door

What to Do When You Look Outside and See a Baby Rat Near Your Kids

It was 6:15 on a freezing Tuesday morning, and I was standing in my kitchen wearing a pair of inside-out Target leggingsβ€”you know the ones with the side pocket that always sags?β€”drinking my third espresso because Maya was going through...

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A stressed father holding a tiny, overly stiff baby polo shirt.

The undeniable madness of the Ralph Lauren baby boy aesthetic

When my mate Dave's wife was expecting their first boy, the unsolicited wardrobe advice came thick and fast, arriving with all the force of a high-speed train. Dave's mum insisted he needed tiny little cable-knit cardigans to look "respectable" (respectable...

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A folded rainbow baby blanket sitting on a messy nursery chair

What the rainbow baby definition actually means in real life

It was a Tuesday in late October, raining that gross sideways rain we get in Seattle, and I was sitting in the driver's seat of my Honda CR-V in the Walgreens parking lot. I was wearing these awful maternity leggings...

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A stressed dad holding his phone in a dark nursery with an 11-month-old baby in a carrier.

The punching babies in public prank is ruining my algorithm

The time was exactly 2:14 AM, the nursery thermostat was reading a stable 69.4 degrees, and I was making the biggest digital mistake of my life. My 11-month-old, Maya, was currently undergoing some sort of developmental firmware update where she...

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Tired mother looking at her phone in a dark nursery while a baby sleeps

Proud Curvy Girl Seeks Lost Baby Daddy: 3 AM Doomscroll Notes

Dear Priya from last November. You're currently sitting on the closed lid of the downstairs toilet. The bathmat is damp under your bare feet because your husband took a shower three hours ago and didn't turn on the exhaust fan....

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Tired mom drinking coffee while staring at baby name lists on her phone

What I Wish I Knew Before Obsessing Over Popular Baby Names 2024

It was 2017, a Tuesday, and I was sweating through a heather-gray maternity tunic at a crowded Starbucks on 4th Street, desperately trying to ignore the fact that my compression leggings were actively cutting off circulation to my thighs. My...

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A blank hospital whiteboard waiting for a baby name to be written in blue marker.

The hospital whiteboard standoff over popular baby names

Squeak, squeak, squeak. That was the sound of my former coworker, a night charge nurse named Sarah, tapping a dry erase marker against the whiteboard in Room 4 at Northwestern Memorial. I was twenty-eight hours postpartum. I was leaking from...

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Exhausted millennial mom drinking cold coffee while holding a crying newborn baby in a messy living room

Searching For A Plug In Baby: The Truth About Newborn Soothing

It was Tuesday, somewhere around 3:14 AM, and I was standing in the middle of our dark nursery wearing my husband Dave’s stained college sweatpants, smelling entirely like sour milk and absolute defeat. Leo was two weeks old and he...

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Exhausted mom drinking coffee while baby plays on a wooden play mat in a modern living room.

The Ultimate Play Mat Baby Survival Guide For Exhausted Parents

I'm sitting cross-legged on my faded West Elm rug. It’s a Tuesday morning in 2017, I'm wearing black maternity leggings that I aggressively refuse to retire even though Maya is four months old, and I'm staring at a flashing, screeching,...

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