Magazine
Surviving a Baby Ostrich Encounter With Your Sanity Intact
Before we packed up the minivan to visit the drive-through wildlife ranch out by the highway last weekend, I managed to get three entirely contradictory pieces of advice about the ostriches. My mom, bless her heart, told me on the...
Surviving the great baby pancake experiment of our weaning era
I'm currently scraping a piece of fossilised banana oat batter off the kitchen ceiling with a plastic spatula. It's 7:14 AM on a Tuesday, and the great weaning experiment has officially breached containment. Maya is covered in a sticky paste...
Why Tiny Panther Movies and Reptile Pets Break Baby's System
I was holding exactly one half of a mashed banana when my seven-year-old nephew, visiting from Seattle for the weekend, loudly demanded we acquire a baby panther. It was 7:15 AM on a Saturday. My eleven-month-old son was currently mashing...
The Viral Baby Pelican Meme and What We Actually Learn from Seabirds
It was 3:17 AM, and my oldest sonβwho's now five and is my daily cautionary tale of why we don't negotiate with emotional terroristsβwas screaming his head off for the fourth time that night. I was scrolling Tumblr in the...
Why Getting A Pet Piglet Might Actually Break Your Spirit
When we decided the twins needed to learn some sort of vague responsibility that didn't involve keeping me awake until 3am, the advice rolled in like a thick London fog. My mother suggested a golden retriever because they supposedly teach...
Finding A Baby Pigeon In Your Backyard (And What To Do Next)
"I need you to put the coffee down," my husband Dave said at exactly 7:14 AM on a Tuesday, wearing only one sock and looking like he'd seen an actual ghost in our hydrangeas. He was holding our seven-year-old, Leo,...
Why We Blasted Baby Pluto To Survive The Fourth Trimester
Itβs 3:17 AM on a Tuesday in November. Iβm sitting in the driverβs seat of my husband Daveβs Honda Civic, parked securely in our own driveway with the engine idling. Iβm wearing a gray fleece bathrobe that smells aggressively like...
My Disastrous Attempt at Raising a PokΓ©mon Fan (And What Worked)
It was a Tuesday in 2019, I was running on maybe three hours of broken sleep, wearing a pair of Target leggings that smelled vaguely of sour milk, and I decided this was the perfect moment to introduce my then-two-year-old...
Dear Past Me: The Ultimate Baby Proofing System for Clueless Dads
Dear Marcus from six months ago. You're currently feeling pretty smug. Your baby is five months old, mostly stays exactly where you put him, and basically acts like a warm, milk-drunk potato. You look around our Portland apartment and think,...