The 3 AM Baby Handoff Protocol: Surviving The Night Shift As A Dad
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was holding my son like he was a live grenade with a faulty pin. He had been screaming for forty-five straight minutes. I had run through the standard troubleshooting checklist: diaper...
What nobody tells you about that first postpartum menstrual cycle
Listen, the biggest lie anyone will ever tell you in those hazy early days is that nursing your baby is a foolproof way to pause your menstrual cycle for a year. I was sitting on my toilet in our cramped...
The Day a Fuzzy Yard Invader Taught Me About Triage
I was holding a lukewarm cup of chai, watching my toddler try to eat a fistful of Chicago dirt, when I saw it. A tiny, masked face peering out from under our cedar deck. It looked like a stuffed animal...
The truth about the Emmanuel Haro case and my own parenting anxiety
I was sitting in my 2018 Honda CR-V in the preschool pickup line, staring blindly at my phone. Maya was in the back seat kicking my chair to the rhythm of some song only she could hear, and I was...
Dear Past Priya: The Goldie Baby Method For Maternal Burnout
Dear Priya from exactly six months ago. You're currently sitting on the bath mat in our freezing Chicago apartment, staring at the crooked grout lines while your son screams on the other side of the door. The e baby monitor...
The Real Meaning Behind Sugar Babies For Tired Moms
Five pounds of Gold Medal all-purpose flour hit my linoleum floor with a sound like a muted gunshot. A white cloud plumed up, coating my scrubs, my sneakers, and the crying actual human infant strapped to my chest. I was...
Keeping your real newborn alive during the plastic toy craze
My mother-in-law told me to rub mustard oil in the baby's ears to prevent winter infections. My old charge nurse swore I had to wake him every two hours on the dot or his blood sugar would tank. The barista...
Figuring Out the New MAGA Baby Savings Account Without Losing It
My father-in-law texted me at 6:15 AM in all-caps about how the federal government is apparently handing out a free thousand bucks for my kid. Two hours later, a senior developer on my engineering team Slack-messaged me a doom-scroll thread...
The Terrifying Bobblehead Phase: Babies Holding Their Heads Up
My mother-in-law was holding Florence, who was precisely eighteen days old at the time, when she decided to gesture wildly with both hands while telling a long-winded story about a rogue fox in her garden. For three horrifying seconds, Florenceβs...