Dear Past Jess: A Survival Guide to the Teething Phase
Dear Jess from six months ago, who's currently sitting on the living room rug, staring blankly at a mountain of tiny socks while watching your youngest child gnaw aggressively on the wooden leg of the coffee table like a feral...
Orajel Baby Madness: Why Teething Advice Is Completely Broken
"Rub some brandy on their gums," my mother-in-law advised over a Sunday roast, looking at me as if I was the village idiot for not having a hip flask ready next to the changing mat. "Just use the blue teething...
The brutal reality of when do baby teeth come in for parents
The radiator in our Chicago apartment was making that rhythmic metallic clanking sound it only makes at three in the morning. I was sitting on the edge of the nursery glider, unbuttoning a soaked baby tee in the dark because...
The Science of Baby Animals (And Why I Can't Bring A Hamster Home)
I was standing in Petco at 4:15 PM on a Tuesday, staring blankly into a terrarium of baby bearded dragons, genuinely calculating if acquiring a tiny reptile would solve my 11-month-oldβs mid-afternoon fussiness. In my sleep-deprived logic, she liked the...
Beissringe Silikon: The Ugly Truth About Teething Advice
Let's rewind to Maya at four months old. I was wearing a gray nursing tank that smelled strongly of sour milk and desperation, and it had this weird yellow yogurt stain on the left strap that I had completely given...
Why our pediatrician vetoed the freezer and pushed a beissring holz
It was 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was standing in front of the open freezer in my boxers, holding a bright blue plastic hippo filled with mystery gel. Our eleven-month-old son was in the other room, screaming like...
The Chicken Bone Incident: Unpacking the Food Teethers Trend
I'm staring at my son, who's currently aggressively making out with a stripped chicken drumstick bone. My wife, Sarah, handed it to him exactly four minutes ago. I'm hovering three inches away, sweat pooling in the collar of my Portland...
Why That Freezer Teether Ring Is Actually Making Your Baby Cry
It was three in the morning in the middle of a Chicago February. The kind of bitter cold that seeps right through the windowpanes and makes the old apartment radiator hiss like an angry cat. My toddler was cutting his...
Why My Wife Wears a Nursing Necklace (And I Got Yelled At)
There was exactly one drop of blood on Sarahβs collarbone. It was Tuesday at 3:14 AM, the nursery temperature was holding steady at an best 69.2 degrees, and our then-five-month-old had decided that nursing was no longer a standard food-acquisition...