Magazine

Tired mother looking at a glowing television screen in the dark

That Midnight Streaming Trap Every Tired Parent Nearly Falls For

My phone lit up the nursery at 2:14 AM like a localized lightning strike. I was currently covered in what I hoped was just formula, trying to rock a teething toddler back to baseline. The text was from Sarah in...

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A confused dad looking at his phone next to a baby in an organic cotton bodysuit

Why Baby Reindeer is Actually a Terrible Nursery Theme (And Show)

On a random Tuesday last month, I received three completely contradictory pieces of data within the span of six hours. First, my coworker Todd slacked me a message between server deployments saying, "Dude, you gotta check out that baby reindeer...

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Baby girl in organic cotton bodysuit playing on the living room floor

The Truth About Raising Daughters and Surviving the Pink Explosion

The ultrasound gel was freezing, and Dave was staring at the monitor like it was a blurry weather map he didn't quite understand. I was lying there in a paper gown that was definitely tearing at the shoulder, clutching a...

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A tired mom holding a coffee mug looking at a baby registry checklist on her laptop.

The Truth About That Massive Amazon Baby Registry Checklist

I was exactly thirty-two weeks pregnant with my oldest, sitting on the floor of my half-painted nursery at two in the morning, sobbing uncontrollably because a little green progress bar on my laptop told me my list was only forty...

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exhausted mom holding a tiny lil baby in a dimly lit chicago nursery

How to keep your lil baby alive without losing your entire mind

Listen, I spent my first two weeks as a mother doing everything exactly wrong. It was three in the morning, and I was bouncing violently on a yoga ball, aggressively shushing while balancing my phone on my shoulder to play...

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A confused dad looking at his baby holding a wooden teething ring instead of a smartphone screen.

Debugging the baby shark phase: Viral videos and double teeth

Don't ever assume an algorithm knows how to soothe your kid better than you do. I learned this the hard way at a coffee shop on Hawthorne last Tuesday, thinking a quick blast of YouTube would act as a temporary...

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A frustrated mom looking at a car seat mirror while driving with her crying baby.

The Truth About The Baby Driver Movie And Actual Car Seat Safety

Let's talk about the biggest, fattest lie the universe feeds expecting parents: that babies inherently love riding in the car. You know the exact myth I'm talking about. You've probably seen those pristine, beige-aesthetic moms on Instagram claiming that all...

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A tired mom looking at a massive pile of baby clothes on her living room floor

The Brutally Honest Guide to Surviving the Baby Gear Avalanche

When I was pregnant with my first, I got three completely different pieces of advice in the span of a single Sunday dinner. My mom, who firmly believes the 1990s were the peak of human parenting, told me I needed...

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Priya reviewing a list of baby names scribbled on a hospital notepad

The brutal truth about picking baby names that won't ruin them

My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen at twenty weeks pregnant to gently suggest that our child's name needed to reflect our deep ancestral roots. Later that afternoon, my hipster neighbor in Logan Square casually mentioned over the fence that...

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