Magazine

Blue tang fish toy sitting next to baby building blocks on a rug.

What the Baby Dory Method Teaches Us About Resilient Kids

I'm sitting on my living room floor in Chicago watching a blue animated tang fish bump into a coral reef for the fortieth time today. My toddler is mesmerized by the screen. Half the moms in my playgroup think this...

Read more

Mom holding baby outside during mosquito season

Why I Quit Natural Bug Spray for Babies (And What Actually Works)

I was standing on my back porch in East Texas last July, holding a twenty-eight dollar glass bottle of "artisan woodland mist" while a mosquito the size of a Buick casually drank from my oldest kid's leg. Bless my first-time-mom...

Read more

A stressed mother looking at her phone while holding a baby

Why I Let a Computer Name My Kids and Tossed the Giant Books

I was sitting on the floor of our half-painted nursery in the dead of a Texas July, sweating through my maternity leggings, when I aggressively hurled a 1,000-page naming dictionary across the room at my husband. It missed him, thankfully,...

Read more

Exhausted mom holding a crying baby in a dimly lit nursery

What Is The Matter Baby? Surviving The 3 AM Newborn Panic Mode

It’s 3:17 AM, and I'm standing in the middle of a nursery that smells vaguely of sour milk and desperation, bouncing my oldest son so hard I’m giving myself shin splints. He is wailing like a banshee. My husband walks...

Read more

Jess folding laundry while thinking about weird vintage movies and baby milestones

What 'The Baby 1973' Taught Me About Letting My Kids Grow Up

I was elbow-deep in a mountain of crusty toddler pants at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday, stress-eating stale Goldfish crackers while waiting for Etsy orders to print, when an old late-night movie caught my eye. Have y'all ever heard of...

Read more