Magazine

A tired dad holding a teething toddler with red cheeks

Why Baby Face Nelson Has Nothing on My Toddler

It's 4:17 in the morning, and the glowing screen of my phone is illuminating half of my face while the other half is being rhythmically kicked by a two-year-old foot. I'm frantically trying to Google why one of my twin...

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Marcus looking stressed while holding a coffee mug and staring at a laptop screen

Why Adding a Baby Duck to Our Family Was a Terribly Stupid Idea

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday. The baby monitor was flashing that menacing yellow warning color, indicating my son was tossing around again. I was sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark, scrolling through a local...

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A dad nervously checking the rearview mirror at a baby in a rear-facing car seat.

The real baby driver 2: A letter to my past self about car seat panic

Dear Marcus from six months ago, You're currently idling in the driveway of the Hawthorne Fred Meyer in your Subaru. The engine is running. The heater is set exactly to 70 degrees because you read somewhere that anything else will...

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Pediatric nurse organizing a sustainable wooden baby dresser with changing table topper

Dear Past Priya: What I Wish I Knew About Buying A Baby Dresser

Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting cross-legged on the floor of the guest room, staring at a particleboard plank and crying over a Swedish instruction manual. You have a screwdriver in one hand and half a jar...

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An 11-month-old baby holding a chunky crayon with a fist grip on a messy paper

The Myth of Baby Art and How to Actually Survive It

I’m currently staring at a active purple streak on the toe of my left sneaker. It arrived there about an hour ago, during what my wife and I ambitiously labeled "creative enrichment time." The biggest myth of modern parentingβ€”propagated almost...

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A tired dad holding a wooden toy dragon while a toddler plays on a rug

Surviving the baby dragon phase and other midnight disasters

It’s 4:12 AM in our London flat, and Florence is standing upright in her cot, gripping the wooden bars like a tiny, furious inmate, screaming for a mythical reptile. Matilda, her twin, is entirely asleep but sporadically kicking the plaster...

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A confused dad looking at an at-home baby doppler device next to a laptop.

The Great Baby Doppler Debug: Why I Stopped Tracking Heartbeats

My mother told me that if I just pressed a toilet paper tube against my wife’s belly, I could hear the baby’s heartbeat perfectly. A senior developer on my team swore by buying a discarded clinical-grade ultrasound machine off eBay...

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A tired pregnant mother drinking coffee while her toddler plays aggressively with a soft toy on the rug.

The Great Toddler Empathy Crisis and My Stained Maternity Shirt

I was exactly thirty-four weeks pregnant with Maya, sweating profoundly through a mustard-yellow maternity top that had a coffee stain shaped exactly like Florida right on the collarbone. It was 3:14 PM on a Tuesday, which is universally the worst...

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Exhausted dad holding twin babies surrounded by baby gear and empty coffee cups

The Absurdity of Sitcom Fathers and the Sticky Reality of Baby D Drops

There I was at 3:14 in the morning, wedged into the corner of the sofa with a rapidly cooling bottle of formula tucked under my chin, desperately trying to keep Twin A from kicking her sister in the head. The...

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