Magazine
Why I Swapped Helicopter Parenting for the Achtung Baby Method
It was a Tuesday morning, maybe 10 AM, and I was wearing a pair of black yoga pants that definitely had spit-up crusted on the left thigh from three days prior. I was physically army-crawling through one of those enclosed...
A Nurse's Guide to the Infant Holiday Wardrobe Trap
My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen last December holding a miniature polyester tuxedo complete with a clip-on bowtie and tiny suspenders. She fully expected my four-month-old to wear this structural engineering marvel to our family dinner. I spent five...
The Huge Infant SPF Lie I Completely Fell For With My First Baby
It was July 2017, I was wearing these god-awful maternity jean shorts that I stubbornly refused to retire, and I was sitting on a sandy towel in Cape May, New Jersey, furiously painting my four-month-old daughter Maya with what can...
My brutally honest guide to your baby store near me search
I was thirty-seven weeks pregnant, sweating profusely through a thin maternity top in a strip mall off the Kennedy Expressway. I had just desperately typed a search for the closest local baby shop into my phone, completely convinced that walking...
The Soft Play Disaster That Made Me Buy Boys Apparel For Twins
The static electricity in the ball pit at Pirate Peteβs Soft Play in Croydon was strong enough to power a small electric vehicle. I know this because my two-year-old twin daughters, Maya and Zoe, were currently trapped inside it, looking...
Dear Past Jess: The Brutal Truth About Crochet Baby Blankets
You're currently sitting on the floor of the nursery surrounded by fifty dollars worth of mustard yellow yarn, crying because you dropped a stitch four rows back. I know this because I was you exactly six months ago, hugely pregnant...
Why Most "Educational" Toys Are Just Overpriced Plastic
I'm currently staring down a plastic monstrosity that speaks three languages, flashes like a discount Vegas casino, and cost my mother-in-law forty-five dollars. It has a giant sticker on the box screaming that it'll teach my baby geometry, and let...
An Honest Letter to Past Tom About the Best Baby Shower Gifts
I'm currently staring at a cashmere baby cardigan roughly the size of a teacup, aggressively regretting my life choices. My mate Daveβs gathering is tomorrow afternoon, and I'm writing this as a therapeutic exercise directed entirely at my past selfβspecifically...
The 15-Minute Peace Treaty: Surviving Baby Activity Centers
At exactly 4:12 PM on a rainy Tuesday, I realized I had made a terrible, terrible mistake. I was sitting on our battered London flat's living room rug, nursing a desperately lukewarm cup of tea, while my twin daughters, Maya...