When Britney Spears ...Baby One More Time Ruined Our Tuesday
The snow outside our Chicago apartment was coming down completely sideways. It was day three of being trapped indoors with a 6-month-old who had abruptly decided that afternoon naps were a biological construct he no longer believed in. I was...
The Josh Naylor Playoff Baby Situation and MLB Paternity Leave
Don't attempt to fix a P1 production bug while your wife's contractions are exactly three minutes apart. I thought I could deploy a quick hotfix from the triage room at Providence Portland while we waited for a doctor. My wife,...
Dear Past Me: Just Buy The Eufy Baby Monitor And Go To Sleep
Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago, I know exactly where you're right now. It's 2:14 AM on a Tuesday. You're sitting on the cold hexagon tiles of the upstairs bathroom because it's the only place in the house where...
The 3 AM System Crash: A Letter to Past Me About That Sound
It's 3:14 AM, and you're currently standing over the crib with your phone flashlight pressed against your chest so the glare doesn't wake him fully, intensely analyzing the rhythmic, aggressive hacking sound coming from your five-month-old son. You're sweating. You...
The Absolute Mess of Tiny Sneakers and What Actually Works
I'm sweating through my faded vintage band t-shirt. The air conditioning in our cramped Brooklyn walk-up is completely shot, and my husband Dave is just standing there in the doorway. He's holding my iced oat milk latte—which is definitely mostly...
Debugging the Parent Posture With Baby Cobra Yoga
I was exactly 4.2 minutes into a "Beginner Yoga for Stiff People" YouTube video, contorted into a shape that felt biologically incorrect, when my 11-month-old decided my ribcage was a drum set. I was trying to troubleshoot what my wife...
Debugging the baby boy wardrobe: A first-time dad’s logs
My thumb was actively bleeding. It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, rain was aggressively battering our Portland bedroom window, and I was locked in a physical struggle with a tiny, angry, poop-covered human. The adversary was a rigid denim...
The Truth About Baby Bows (And The Red Marks They Leave)
I was standing in the middle of a dusty Texas bluebonnet patch off Highway 290, sweating completely through my shirt while my four-month-old screamed like a tiny, furious baby Bowser. She was thrashing around, clawing at her own head, trying...
The 3 AM Blowout That Made Me Rethink Gerber Baby Clothes
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, the ambient temperature in the nursery was exactly 61.5 degrees, and I was staring at a structural failure of catastrophic proportions. The containment vessel had breached. My eleven-month-old son, who was supposed to...