The Honest Truth About Needing a Baby Play Pen
My mother-in-law told me a baby play pen is a cage that stunts gross motor skills and ruins a child's natural curiosity. My neighbor, on the other hand, told me she leaves her daughter in one for four hours a...
Streaming Shows For Babies And The Real Science Of Screen Time
My mother-in-law insisted that any moving image on a television would permanently short-circuit my infant's brain. My neighbor down the hall swore that putting on animated dancing fruit was the only way she managed to wash her hair without someone...
Decoding The Postpartum Truth In Go Baby Justin Bieber Lyrics
It's 3:17 AM in Chicago. The radiator in my pre-war apartment is hissing, and I'm swaying in the dark with a reflux-prone fourteen-month-old draped over my shoulder. I'm trying to keep my sanity intact. In my right earbud, I'm listening...
How Many Babies Are Born a Day: The Honest Math Behind Birth
My mother-in-law told me infants only arrive during full moons. My old charge nurse at Northwestern swore Tuesday mornings were a cursed tidal wave of inductions. And the cashier at Trader Joe's confidently informed me, while bagging my frozen samosas,...
Exactly How Many Baby Mamas Does Elon Musk Have? A Mom's Guide
Dear Jess from six months ago: put down the phone and step away from the billionaire gossip. I know exactly what you're doing right now. You're sitting in the dark in that creaky rocking chair, elbow-deep in the smell of...
Figuring out exactly how old is lil baby and surviving year one
It's 3:17 AM in Chicago. The radiator is hissing. I'm sitting in a glider that smells faintly of sour milk, staring at my phone. I'm so violently sleep-deprived that I've somehow fallen down a Wikipedia rabbit hole trying to figure...
Oh Baby I Love Your Way: How Infants Actually Show Affection
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in November, and the apartment was absolutely freezing. I was standing in the middle of our tiny hallway wearing my husband Daveβs hideous neon orange high school track shirtβthe one that smells permanently...
Dear Past Me: The Truth About Parenting Lifelines and Sanity
Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago. Youβre sitting on the sticky linoleum floor in the kitchen right next to the dog's water bowl. You're wearing Daveβs oversized gray hoodie that smells faintly of old garlic and you're mainlining your...
Why Your Baby's Hands Are Always Cold (And Other Tiny Mysteries)
I was standing right in the middle of the produce section at H-E-B with my oldest, violently rubbing his tiny, ice-cold purple hands between my own, completely convinced I had somehow given my two-week-old frostbite in South Texas in late...