Watching my kid fall off the playground cured my helicopter anxiety
The wind coming off Lake Michigan was aggressive enough to make my eyes water, but I couldn't blink. My two-year-old was fifteen feet up a rope climbing pyramid at Maggie Daley Park. His left foot was wedged between two cables....
Keeping the Baby Jesus Out of Your Toddler's Mouth
I was in the kitchen aggressively scraping burnt porridge out of a pan when the silence hit. Any parent of two-year-old twins knows that silence is never golden; it's highly suspicious and usually expensive. I dropped the pan, sprinted into...
Why Adding a Baby Duck to Our Family Was a Terribly Stupid Idea
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday. The baby monitor was flashing that menacing yellow warning color, indicating my son was tossing around again. I was sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark, scrolling through a local...
The real baby driver 2: A letter to my past self about car seat panic
Dear Marcus from six months ago, You're currently idling in the driveway of the Hawthorne Fred Meyer in your Subaru. The engine is running. The heater is set exactly to 70 degrees because you read somewhere that anything else will...
The Absurdity of Sitcom Fathers and the Sticky Reality of Baby D Drops
There I was at 3:14 in the morning, wedged into the corner of the sofa with a rapidly cooling bottle of formula tucked under my chin, desperately trying to keep Twin A from kicking her sister in the head. The...
Dear Past Jess: What You Actually Need To Know About Baby Clipart
Dear Jess from six months ago, You're currently sitting on the laundry room linoleum, crying over a jammed HP inkjet printer while your oldest screams because his socks "feel spicy" and the baby is aggressively cluster feeding. You just wanted...
Surviving the baby chair transition without a trip to the ER
The sweet potato puree was everywhere. It was day three of solid foods. Riya was slumped to the left in a hand-me-down high chair that looked like a plastic spaceship. She coughed, gagged, and suddenly went silent. My ER nurse...
The Blunt Truth About Retractable Baby Gates (And My Worst Night)
It was 6:15 PM, I had a half-empty jar of marinara sauce tucked under my left arm, a screaming six-month-old anchored on my right hip, and my two-year-old was actively trying to feed the dog a AAA battery he found...
The Toddler Nepo Baby: Surviving Sandpit Privilege
"Get them into St. Jude's nursery now by calling your Aunt Susan," my mother-in-law hissed over a lukewarm cup of Earl Grey last Tuesday, as if we were discussing a covert military op rather than a place where kids eat...