The absolute exhaustion of finding truly unique baby names
The lady from medical records was tapping her pen against her clipboard, shifting her weight from one Dansko clog to the other. I was forty-eight hours postpartum, sweating through a hospital gown that smelled like iodine, holding the birth certificate...
Surviving a Baby MRI: A London Dad's Letter to His Past Self
Dear Tom from six months ago, You're currently standing in the kitchen at 4:13 am, covered in what I desperately hope is just standard-issue reflux, staring at a crumpled NHS appointment letter. Baby M is asleep on your left shoulder,...
The brutal truth about choosing a baby mobile for crib survival
I was lying flat on my back on the reasonably clean portion of the nursery rug, my cheek pressed against a discarded Calpol syringe, watching a plastic hippo spin furiously at forty revolutions per minute while a tinny, slightly off-key...
Taking Your Kids On A Baby Metal Tour Without Losing Your Mind
I was standing in my kitchen at 6:15 AM, right? Wearing Daveβs faded Megadeth shirt that has a literal hole in the left armpit, staring blindly at my phone while my coffee got aggressively cold. Because I had three separate...
Decoding the True Meaning of Baby (And Other Strange Slang)
I just had to explain the concept of nepotism over FaceTime while my 11-month-old attempted to eat a rogue USB-C cable. My mother-in-law had seen some hashtag on Twitter and wanted to know what the kids were talking about, which...
The day a magnetic baby lock defeated my husband and saved the bleach
It was a Tuesday morning, exactly 10:14 AM, and I was wearing a pair of gray maternity sweatpants that had a questionable yogurt stain on the left thigh. Maya was at preschool, and Leo was nine months old. He had...
The Brutal Reality Of Trying To Find A Safe Baby Life Jacket
July 2018. Lake George. I'm standing on a splintery wooden dock in a Target floral maxi dress that I thought made me look like a breezy, relaxed coastal mom but was actually just wrapping around my ankles and tripping me....
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 Daveβs stained college sweatpants, smelling entirely like sour milk and absolute defeat. Leo was two weeks old and he...
The 3 AM Meltdown That Made Me Believe in Custom Storybooks
It was exactly 3:14 AM. I know this because the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock were burning a hole into my retinas while I sat there nursing a three-day-old infant and chugging day-old cold brew that tasted profoundly...