Magazine
Freestyle Lil Baby & Car Rides: Bass, Babies, and Eardrums
My mother-in-law Sheila leaned right into the bassinet and told me, in absolute dead earnestness, that playing Mozart at a low volume was the only mathematically proven way to build brain cells in an infant. My 22-year-old cousin, who by...
Dear Past Me: Surviving Baby Colds With A Frida Baby Nose Sucker
Dear Past Me from six months ago, You're currently standing in aisle 14 at Target, holding a registry scanner gun for your pregnant sister, and staring blindly at a wall of infant grooming tools. You're wearing your stained gray "mom"...
The 3 AM Whistling Butt Tube (A Letter To My Exhausted Past Self)
Dear Sarah from exactly four years ago (though my sleep-deprived, coffee-soaked brain still genuinely feels like this was maybe 6 months ago), You're currently standing in the kitchen. It's 3:14 AM. You're wearing those gray maternity sweatpants with the mysterious...
Furry Babies: Managing Pets, Pretend Play, and Tiny Humans
I was standing on my front porch sweating through my postpartum pads, clutching my three-day-old son like he was a live grenade, while my 80-pound lab mix, Buster, hurled his entire body against the glass storm door. The dog was...
Before and After: My Framework for Debugging a Fussy Baby
It's 3:14 AM and the glowing green numbers on our microwave are actively mocking me. I'm currently bouncing on a giant blue yoga ball, clutching a screaming eleven-month-old against my chest, while my wife desperately tries to warm up a...
My 3AM Encounter With The Notorious Gateron Baby Kangaroo
It sounded like a particularly brittle beetle being crushed under a Wellington boot, but the sharp, piercing pain shooting directly up into my left heel suggested something far more synthetic. It was 3:17 AM. I was halfway across the living...
Get Set Baby: Why Over-the-Top Newborn Prep Meets 3 AM Reality
We were standing in the narrow hallway of our second-floor London flat, holding two incredibly heavy car seats containing two very small, very loud humans. It was raining, obviously. The boot of the Uber had just been emptied of a...
The brutal before and after of your get-set baby preparation
I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant, standing in the middle of our cramped Chicago second bedroom holding a perfectly folded stack of organic burp cloths. I had color-coordinated the drawer dividers. I actually ironed the crib sheets. I thought I had...
Why The Go Baby Justin Bieber Song Is Exactly What Moms Need
My mother-in-law told me to "sleep when the baby sleeps" while giving my messy, laundry-covered living room this highly specific, terrifying side-eye. The hospital lactation consultant, a woman whose hands smelled violently of industrial sanitizer, instructed me to feed on...