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Tired dad staring at a washing machine holding a ruined synthetic baby blanket

The Great Midnight Laundry Crash: Blankets and Baby Thermodynamics

I'm standing in our dimly lit basement laundry room at 2:14 AM, holding what used to be a piece of luxury textile, and it currently looks like a severely depressed, matted muppet. My wife is standing in the doorway, her...

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A tired London dad holding two toddlers away from a glass patio door while a fox sits outside.

The Hackney Standoff: Two Babies, One Urban Fox, Zero Dignity

At 5:43 AM on a drizzly Tuesday, I found myself in a high-stakes staring contest with a mangy urban fox. I was armed only with a lukewarm mug of instant coffee and two extremely confident toddlers who were aggressively wielding...

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11-month-oldbaby blanketeco-friendlymillennialparenting humorsleep safety
Tired dad looking under a car seat for a small pink baby lovey blanket

How a Single Bunny Blanket Took Our Entire Family Hostage

I'm currently upside down in the backseat of our Prius with a flashlight clamped between my teeth. It's 11:43 PM. My wife is standing on the porch holding a screaming eleven-month-old, and we're tearing the car apart because we lost...

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A messy pile of folded organic cotton and bamboo receiving blankets on a nursery chair

Stop Trying to Swaddle With a Receiving Blanket

It was 3 AM in late January. The wind off Lake Michigan was rattling our bedroom windows, and my daughter was doing the newborn startle reflex thing. She looked like she was trying to conduct a tiny, frantic orchestra in...

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A dad looking confused holding a personalized baby swaddle in a nursery

The Real Reason Babies Never Actually Sleep With Custom Blankets

There's a massive disconnect between the baby gear you think you need before the kid arrives and the reality of keeping a tiny human alive. Before our son Leo was born, my mental image of fatherhood involved a lot of...

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A highly skeptical baby staring at a brightly coloured hand-crafted blanket

The Truth About Crocheted Baby Blankets (And Keeping Toes Attached)

It was 2am, roughly six weeks before the twins were due, and I was sweating profusely over a plastic hook and a spool of aggressively yellow yarn. I had somehow convinced myself that real fatherhood began with mastering basic patterns...

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Jess folding a gender neutral baby blanket in a woodland themed nursery.

The 2024 Chinese Gender Calendar: My Costly First Trimester Mistake

When I was six weeks pregnant with my oldest, I was standing in my kitchen eating a dry piece of toast, trying to hold down my breakfast, when the unsolicited advice started rolling in. My mom walked in, took one...

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A messy pile of organic cotton yarn next to a half-finished crochet baby project.

Dear Past Jess: The Brutal Truth About Crochet Baby Blankets

You're currently sitting on the floor of the nursery surrounded by fifty dollars worth of mustard yellow yarn, crying because you dropped a stitch four rows back. I know this because I was you exactly six months ago, hugely pregnant...

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A dad looking confused while holding knitting needles and tangled merino wool.

Why I Attempted Babydecke Stricken (And Almost Lost My Mind)

My mother-in-law slapped a skein of neon acrylic on our kitchen island and told me it was indestructible. Three hours later, the guy at the local Portland yarn shop looked at me like I'd asked to poison the water supply...

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