Megan Walerius, Birth Plans, and the Chaos of Expectations
When we announced the twins were on the way, I received three distinct pieces of advice within a forty-five-minute window at my local pub. My mother, clutching a small glass of sherry, told us to simply let nature take its...
Raising A Linxia Baby: The Unfiltered Truth About Newborn Life
I was standing in the Target baby aisle at 9 PM on a Tuesday, completely dead inside, while my oldest son Jackson screamed against my chest in a carrier that I was probably wearing wrong. He was three weeks old....
The disaster of picking a baby boy easter outfit
It was ten in the morning on a Sunday and I was staring at a mustard-yellow blowout that had completely breached the hull of a forty-dollar miniature linen suit. My mother-in-law was knocking on the powder room door, asking if...
Dear Past Marcus: Those Aren't Pale Ants, They're Baby Termites
Dear Marcus of exactly six months ago: Put down the flashlight. That tiny, pale, squirming thing you're currently poking with a cotton swab at 2:14 AM on the bathroom tile is not an albino ant. It's a baby termite. Don't...
The Honest Truth About Your Baby Dedication (And Surviving It)
Let me paint a picture for y'all. It's Sunday morning, roughly 10:15 AM. I'm sitting in the second pew, sweating clean through my nice silk blouse, while my oldest son—who was supposed to look like a literal angel from heaven—is...
The 3AM Savior: Decoding Baby Blue Daniel Caesar Lyrics
There's a very specific type of despair that sets in around 3:14 AM when one twin is screaming because the shadows on the wall are looking at her funny, and the other is methodically attempting to ingest the cardboard spine...
When Do You Actually Stop Burping a Baby? An Honest Dad Guide
Dear Tom from six months ago—or rather, let's cast our minds all the way back to the dark trenches when the twins were tiny, because time is a flat, milk-stained circle and my trauma has simply manifested as a letter...
When Can You Find Out the Gender of a Baby? A Messy Guide
When I was barely six weeks pregnant with Leo, sitting at a lukewarm brunch while desperately trying not to hurl into my overpriced oatmeal and clutching my third decaf coffee like a lifeline, I got three entirely different timelines for...
The Great BBQ Debate: Ribs and Baby-Led Weaning
Summer in Chicago means the lake breeze is sticky and someone is always firing up a smoker in a park. We were at a family cookout near Montrose Beach last July when my husband's uncle handed my eight-month-old a massive,...