Dear Anxious Me: The Absolute Truth About Buying A Crib Mattress
Dear Sarah from six months ago. You're currently sitting cross-legged on the floor of your sister's guest room, which she just painted a highly questionable shade of mustard yellow. You have half a cold, oat milk latte balanced precariously on...
The Wi-Fi Paranoia and Why We Chose a Simple Monitor
I was seven months pregnant with Maya, standing in the middle of Target aisle 14 in my black maternity leggings that were completely pilling at the thighs, clutching a lukewarm iced coffee like it was a life preserver. My phone...
Finding the Best Humidifier for Baby: A Letter to My Past Self
Dear Jess from last November. Right now, you're standing in the middle of the nursery at 3 AM holding a crusty, dinosaur-shaped plastic water tank that smells faintly of wet dog, crying because your six-month-old sounds like a tiny pug...
Why I Dropped Three Hundred Bucks on a Newton Baby Mattress
When I was pregnant with my second kid, I stood in the middle of the Target baby aisle having a full-blown existential crisis while three different people texted me completely contradictory advice about where my child should sleep. My mom,...
What Finding Baby Bed Bugs at 3 AM Actually Does to a Parent
The glow of my phone screen at 3:14 AM illuminated what I can only describe as a tiny, malevolent sesame seed crawling across Maya's fitted sheet. I had only come into the nursery because she had done that specific, high-pitched...
The Bambi Baby Store Standard: Surviving the Gear Shopping Madness
"Sleep when the baby sleeps," my mother confidently announced over a lukewarm cup of tea, completely ignoring the fact that there were two babies and they were heavily invested in sleeping in opposing four-hour shifts. "You absolutely must keep them...
The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping: What Modern Parents Actually Learned
My mother-in-law told me to let him cry until he throws up because it builds character. My pediatrician, who looks like he hasn't slept since the Obama administration, muttered something about responsive attachment and vagus nerve development. Meanwhile, my favorite...
The Complete Chaos of Baby Lyrics and What Actually Soothes Them
My mother-in-law cornered me in the hospital recovery room to insist I strictly sing classical raagas if I wanted a smart child. Twelve hours later, the night nurse doing my vitals told me to skip singing entirely and just use...
The 2 AM Wi-Fi Outage That Taught Me How to Pick the Best Baby Monitor
Lightning struck somewhere past our back pasture, the thunder rattled the bedroom windows, and the little green light on my nightstand router immediately turned a sinister, blinking red. It was 2:14 AM. I snatched up my phone, but instead of...