The brutal, messy truth about when your baby will finally sit up
I was sitting cross-legged on my living room rug, trapped in a fortress of couch cushions. My son, six months old and entirely unbothered by gravity, had just executed his fortieth faceplant of the morning. His grandmother was on FaceTime,...
The Great Melanin Firmware Update: A Dad's Guide to Eye Color
Hey Marcus from six months ago. You're currently standing by the window in our perpetually gray Portland living room, angling a five-month-old infant toward the meager sunlight, trying to determine if her irises are hex code #4B5320 (Army Green) or...
The 3 AM Teething Triage: Surviving the First Tooth
It was three in the morning, mid-January in Chicago, and the wind was howling off Lake Michigan. My toddler was thrashing in her crib like she was possessed, her sleep sack completely saturated with drool. I stood there running through...
The Middle-of-the-Night Panic Search For Your Baby's First Tooth
I was staring at the ceiling of our Chicago apartment at 3:14 AM. The radiator was clanking. My son was gnawing on my collarbone like a starving hyena. His chin was a waterfall of drool, soaking right through my third...
When Do Babies Start Babbling? A Tired Mom’s Guide to the Noise
There I was, sitting cross-legged on my living room rug surrounded by a mountain of unsorted laundry, aggressively waving black-and-white flashcards in my firstborn’s face. Leo was about four months old at the time, staring at me with the blankest...
When Do Babies Start Cooing? A Real Mom's Guide to Early Sounds
I was sweating through my third nursing tank of the day in the cab of my F-150 outside the local feed store in mid-July. My oldest, Wyatt, was exactly eight weeks old and sitting in his car seat looking at...
The Spit-Up Timeline: When The Milk Volcano Finally Stops
At exactly 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, surrounded by seven different brands of anti-colic bottles and covered in what smelled like old yogurt, I realized the biggest lie of early parenthood. I had spent three weeks thinking I could troubleshoot...
Why Do Babies Wear Helmets? A Letter To My Freaking Out Past Self
Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago, You're currently sitting cross-legged on the dusty attic floor. You're wearing Dave's old college hoodie that smells intensely of damp cardboard, and you're literally crying into a plastic storage bin of Leo's outgrown...
The Reality of Sparkle Megan's Baby Reveal (From a Tired Dad)
Dear Marcus of six months ago. It's currently 3:14 AM, the rain is aggressively battering the Portland windows, and you're sitting in the glider chair trying to figure out if breathing too loudly will wake up the tiny human currently...