Magazine

Tired dad looking at his phone in a dark Portland nursery

The 50 Cent Baby Momma Drama Broke My Brain at 3 AM

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and my eleven-month-old was emitting a continuous, low-frequency hum that sounded exactly like a failing server fan. I was sitting on the floor of his nursery in the Portland rain, staring at the...

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Exhausted mom holding her awake two month old baby in a dim nursery

The 2 month old baby survival protocol: sleep, poop, and panicking ...

Listen, it's three in the morning and you're staring at the ceiling while your kid makes pterodactyl noises in the bassinet next to you. Your auntie's voice is echoing in your head, insisting that if you just put some rice...

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Jess holding a baby in rural Texas while folding a massive pile of laundry

1000 Babies Review: Surviving The First Thousand Days of Chaos

I'm currently watching my four-year-old—the child I swear is my living, breathing cautionary tale for what happens when you read too many parenting blogs—try to lasso our basset hound with a phone charger. Meanwhile, my youngest is mashing an unidentified...

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A tired dad staring at a grainy ultrasound photo of twins on a kitchen table.

The Midnight Delusion of Finding a Flawless Baby Gender Predictor

It's 2:14 in the morning, and I'm standing in our freezing London kitchen dangling my wife's wedding ring on a piece of mint-flavored dental floss over her slightly convex stomach. She is entirely ignoring me, aggressively eating pickled onions straight...

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Toddler wearing a bamboo wearable blanket in a dark nursery

The ugly truth about transitioning to a toddler wearable blanket

The biggest lie they tell you at the twelve-month pediatrician visit is that your kid is finally old enough for a real blanket. People hear that milestone and immediately run out to buy tiny, expensive quilts. They carefully tuck their...

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A tired mom holding a slippery baby next to a bathtub filled with plastic soap bottles

The Ugly Truth About Baby Wash and That Famous Newborn Smell

I was standing in the middle of Target, heavily pregnant with my second, actively sniffing a plastic bottle of yellow shampoo while my oldest kid scratched his eczema patches until they bled. I remember looking at the ingredients list, which...

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Exhausted dad staring at a mustard-stained baby onesie at 3 AM while trying to figure out the shoulder snaps.

Dear Past Marcus: A Debugging Guide to the Basic Baby Onesie

It's 3:14 AM in our drafty Portland apartment, and I'm holding my screaming four-month-old son at arm's length like he's a live explosive device. The incident has breached containment. A toxic, mustard-yellow substance has defied the elastic boundaries of his...

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A dining table covered in spilled soup with a silicone baby bowl

The Butternut Squash Disaster and Finding Decent Adult Bibs

It's 6:14 PM on a Thursday. My kitchen smells like roasted garlic and sheer desperation. I'm wearing a gray hoodie with a mystery stain on the sleeve that I'm just telling everyone is toothpaste but it's definitely yogurt from two...

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A stressed mom holding a lukewarm coffee next to a baby in a giant puffy coat.

The Michelin Man Myth: Dressing Your Baby for Winter Survival

It was November 2017, and I was standing in a Target parking lot sweating through my deodorant while the actual air temperature was roughly twenty-eight degrees. Maya was four months old at the time. I was wearing yoga pants that...

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