That Viral Donkey Game Is Ruining My Search History
I was pumping at three in the morning in my dark Chicago apartment, half-asleep, trying to find a specific wooden animal push-toy my mother-in-law swore was the secret to getting my toddler to walk. I typed what I thought was...
Why My Phone is Full of Blurry Baby Pictures (And What to Do)
My iCloud storage officially threw a fatal error at 2:14 AM on a Tuesday. I was standing in the pitch black of the nursery, balancing my eleven-month-old sonβs disproportionately heavy head against my collarbone, while frantically trying to delete cached...
Dear Past Marcus: Lil Nas X Industry Baby is Not a Nursery Song
Dear Marcus of exactly six months ago, Picture this exact scenario, because you're going to live it soon enough. You're standing in the kitchen, aggressively whisking a bottle of formula at 2:14 PM, wearing a gray t-shirt that hasn't seen...
Searching For The Wham Lil Baby Trend Broke My Pediatric Brain
I was sitting on a freezing bench at Oz Park when I overheard two teenagers walking by. One of them muttered something about giving their lil baby weed, and then the other brought up the wham lil baby protocol. My...
What da baby's messy family structure taught me about boundaries
I was sitting at the nurses station at two in the morning a few years back, charting a pediatric asthma exacerbation that was taking way too long to stabilize. Right in front of my desk, two parents started a quiet...
Wait, How Old is Baby Gronk? (And Other Parenting Anxieties)
My wife caught me measuring the exact distance between our coffee table and the dog bed with a laser tape measure while our 11-month-old gnawed enthusiastically on a rogue piece of cardboard he'd found behind the router. "I'm setting up...
The Huda Baby Daddy Drama, Digital Scars, and Real Co-Parenting
I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub at three in the morning. The ceramic tiles were freezing, but my toddler had finally collapsed against my collarbone after a three-hour marathon of teething-induced crying. I had my phone brightness...
Why the Pretty Baby Movie Documentary Broke My Dad Brain
It was 3:14 AM, the Portland rain was actively trying to dissolve our roof, and my 11-month-old daughter was using my sternum as a memory foam mattress. I had my phone brightness dialed down to absolute zero, squinting through the...
Surviving the Pretty Little Baby Connie Francis TikTok Trend
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and the nursery was running at an good 69.4 degrees Fahrenheit. I know this because I check the smart thermostat logs when I can't sleep, which is always. My wife was standing in...