The 3 AM Baby Vicks Rub Panic and How I Finally Got My Kid to Sleep
It was exactly 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in mid-November, and I was standing in the middle of the nursery wearing yesterdayβs yoga pants with an unidentifiable crusty stain on the knee, holding a half-empty mug of room-temperature coffee that...
The Best Sleeping Position For Baby With Stuffy Nose Resolved
It was 3:14 AM, the cool-mist humidifier was blasting enough vapor to make the nursery look like a 90s music video, and my eleven-month-old sounded exactly like a broken espresso machine. Every inhale was a wet, whistling rattle. Every exhale...
A Letter to Myself on Debugging a Baby Boy's Winter Wardrobe
You're currently standing in the nursery at 2:14 AM, holding a laser thermometer and pointing it at the baseboards because the room is reading 69.8 degrees instead of your meticulously programmed 71.2 degrees. Your five-month-old son is asleep, but you're...
Baby Its Cold Outside: A Chicago Nurse's Winter Survival Guide
The wind coming off Lake Michigan felt like tiny shards of glass hitting my face. I was wedged in the back seat of my Honda CR-V, wrestling a screaming six-month-old out of a Michelin-man snowsuit while the heater blew pathetic...
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...
The Great Infant Hat Standoff: When Your Child Refuses to Wear One
My forehead is currently resting against the cold Victorian anaglypta wallpaper of our hallway, and I'm quietly pleading with a ten-month-old. She is holding her mustard-yellow knitted beanie in her left fist like a triumphant gladiator holding a severed head....
The brutal truth about baby cough medicine and what actually works
At 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, I was standing in my dark kitchen holding a thrashing, coughing toddler while my phone lit up with three different text threads. My mom was typing paragraphs about rubbing warm mustard oil on his...
Baby It's Cold Outside Lyrics Drama & Winter Layering
Dear Jess from last December. You're currently hiding in the laundry room, sitting on a pile of unfolded bath towels, frantically trying to look up the baby it's cold outside lyrics on your cracked phone so you can prove a...
A Letter To Myself About The Baby Humidifier Situation
Dear Jess of last November. You're currently standing in the baby aisle of Target at two in the morning, staring bleary-eyed at a wall of plastic water-blowing machines while your four-month-old sounds like a tiny, asthmatic pug in the shopping...