Magazine
Why the Kayla Vesia Baby News Broke My Brain as a New Dad
It was 3:17 AM. My 11-month-old was finally asleep, doing that weird starfish pose that aggressively takes up eighty percent of the crib real estate. The room smelled faintly of diaper cream and exhausted desperation. I was sitting on the...
Oh Baby I Love Your Way: How Infants Actually Show Affection
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in November, and the apartment was absolutely freezing. I was standing in the middle of our tiny hallway wearing my husband Dave’s hideous neon orange high school track shirt—the one that smells permanently...
The gloriously absurd reality of making a test tube baby in your 30s
"So," my Great-Aunt Maureen leaned in over a plate of increasingly stale buffet sandwiches at a family wedding, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Are they test tube babies?" I looked down at my twin girls, who were currently...
Dear Past Me: The Truth About Parenting Lifelines and Sanity
Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago. You’re sitting on the sticky linoleum floor in the kitchen right next to the dog's water bowl. You're wearing Dave’s oversized gray hoodie that smells faintly of old garlic and you're mainlining your...
When Internet Video Game Bugs Cause Panic and Real Wasps Attack
I was standing in the middle of the hallway yesterday, hip-deep in a laundry basket full of unmatched tiny socks, staring down at my four-year-old’s sticky, peanut-butter-smudged iPad screen. He had left his browser open, and the search history said...
The Ugly Truth About Those Viral Baby Hazel Games
It was 4:13 PM on a Tuesday and I was wearing my husband Dave’s oversized college hoodie that smelled faintly of old garlic, holding a lukewarm mug of French roast that I had already microwaved three separate times. I was...
The Great Infant Hat Standoff: When Your Child Refuses to Wear One
My forehead is currently resting against the cold Victorian anaglypta wallpaper of our hallway, and I'm quietly pleading with a ten-month-old. She is holding her mustard-yellow knitted beanie in her left fist like a triumphant gladiator holding a severed head....
Why Your Baby's Hands Are Always Cold (And Other Tiny Mysteries)
I was standing right in the middle of the produce section at H-E-B with my oldest, violently rubbing his tiny, ice-cold purple hands between my own, completely convinced I had somehow given my two-week-old frostbite in South Texas in late...
Surviving the polyester nightmare of baby halloween costumes
It was 5:42 PM on a Tuesday in late October, and I was standing in the drizzling rain behind a Vauxhall Astra, trying to forcefully snap the gusset of a synthetic velvet pumpkin over my screaming two-year-old’s nappy. Her twin...