Magazine

A tired mom holding a coffee while looking at a baby chick

Dear Past Me: Stop Googling "Baby Chicks For Sale" Before You Read ...

You're standing in aisle four of the farm supply store. It’s April. You're wearing those black leggings with the mysterious crusty yogurt stain on the left knee, balancing a rapidly melting iced oat milk latte against your hip, while Mayaβ€”who's...

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A confused dad looking at his baby pointing at a wild animal in the grass

The Portland Backyard Bug: Debugging Encounters with Baby Animals

I'm standing in my perpetually damp Portland backyard at 6:15 AM, holding a lukewarm mug of coffee like a shield, while my 11-month-old son, Leo, points a chubby, sticky finger at what appears to be a vibrating pile of dead...

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A tired mom holding a toddler and a newborn baby in a messy living room

How the Peppa Pig New Baby Episode Saved My Sanity With Two Kids

I was sitting squarely on the cold bathroom tile, staring cross-eyed at two pink lines on a plastic stick, while my two-year-old was actively trying to flush my best Mac contour brush down the toilet. He paused his plumbing experiment,...

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A stressed British father staring in horror at a television remote control

Why searching for the cast of baby reindeer will ruin your evening

It was 5:17 AM on a Tuesday, an hour that shouldn't legally exist, and my living room looked like a crime scene involving a half-eaten box of oat biscuits and an aggressively smeared syringe of sticky, strawberry-flavoured Calpol. Florence, the...

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Toddler banging on the keys of a dark wood baby grand piano in a messy living room

The Reality of Fitting a Baby Grand Piano in a House with Toddlers

I'm currently on my hands and knees in the lounge, holding one end of a metal tape measure while Maya, who's two, tries to eat the other end. Her twin sister, Lily, is repeatedly smashing a wooden spoon against the...

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Tired British dad looking at a baby monitor while holding a cold coffee

Baby Got Back: Surviving Sleep Paranoia and Toddler Defiance

My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen on day three of fatherhood to firmly insist that babies must sleep on their fronts, otherwise they'll choke on their own spit-up and perish before dawn. The NHS health visitor, who arrived three...

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A toddler wearing bright pink baby crocs standing on a sunny London pavement

The Truth About Baby Crocs: A Tale of Sweaty Feet and Tears

There's a very specific sound a toddler makes right before gravity wins. It's a sharp intake of breath, followed immediately by the distinctive, hollow thwack of foam rubber failing to grip damp pavement on a slight incline. It was a...

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A toddler in an organic cotton bodysuit looking at a baby chick in a plastic brooder tub.

Surviving Backyard Baby Chicks When You Already Have A Toddler

We were standing in the middle of a farm supply store somewhere in the Illinois suburbs when my husband decided we needed to teach our two-year-old about food sustainability. He was holding a cardboard box that vibrated with high-pitched chirps,...

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Toddler aggressively dragging a realistic baby doll by the ankle

Why that hyper-realistic baby doll is a terrible idea for your kid

Listen. I was standing in my friend Maya's kitchen last Tuesday when she proudly unboxed a four-hundred-dollar reborn silicone infant for her two-year-old. The thing had hand-painted translucent veins, micro-rooted eyelashes, and the exact dead weight of a sleeping newborn....

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