The Birthday Beanie Baby Trap: A Letter to My Tired Past Self
Dear Tom from exactly six months ago, You're currently hunched over your laptop in the glow of a half-eaten digestive biscuit, ignoring the faint sounds of Maya and Chloe practicing their synchronized 2 AM grunting from the other room. You...
Debugging the Y2K Aesthetic When Your Infant Refuses to Flex
We were at our usual Saturday spotβthat overly loud Portland coffee roaster where the tables are made of reclaimed shipping palletsβwhen my eleven-month-old daughter simply stopped working. Her entire motor function API just failed. She was sitting in her high...
Debugging the 2 AM Bottle Wash (And Why We Switched Methods)
It was 2:14 AM. I was standing in the kitchen illuminated only by the harsh blue light of the microwave clock, aggressively scrubbing a plastic milk cylinder with the exact same green and yellow sponge I had just used to...
Dear Past Marcus: Let's Talk About Baby Gold and Choking Hazards
Dear Marcus of six months ago, I know exactly where you're right now. You're sitting on the edge of the living room rug, staring at a tiny velvet box that Aunt Linda just handed you. Inside is a 14-karat baby...
Trump Baby Boomers Approval Rating: A Real Parent Survival Guide
Don't try to explain macroeconomic policy to your father-in-law while your toddler is currently trying to shove a fistful of buttered mashed potatoes up his own nose. Just don't do it. I learned this the hard way last Thanksgiving, standing...
Don't Give Your Kid That 1997 Purple Bear
I was standing in my mom's sweltering Texas attic last July, sweating through my t-shirt, while she rummaged through a stack of plastic storage bins. She finally pulled out a Ziploc bag with the reverence of someone handling the Declaration...
How A Mountain Of Baby Bjorn Gear Saved My Sanity With Twins
It was half-past three in the morning on day four of twin parenthood, and I was trying to eat a piece of cold toast while balancing one screaming infant on my left forearm and another on my right knee. My...
The day my mother's vintage toy hoard almost ruined our lives
I was elbow-deep in a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal on a miserable, sleeting Chicago afternoon when my mother dragged a black Hefty garbage bag into my apartment. She had the frantic, secretive energy of someone smuggling contraband across a border....
Surviving the great baby toy invasion without losing your mind
My mother-in-law arrived on a Tuesday afternoon with a battery-operated plastic farmyard that screamed distorted animal noises at 120 decibels, proudly declaring it highly educational for the twins. The very next day, my heavily bearded friend who lives in Hackney...