Why I Will Never Buy the Baby Dior Perfume for My Twin Girls
Last Tuesday at precisely 4:15 PM, I found myself standing in a terrifyingly white Georgian townhouse in South Kensington, wiping a smear of mashed banana off my left shoulder while watching a woman named Cressida casually spritz her eight-month-old son...
Surviving 29 Weeks: From Butternut Squashes to Tiny Terrorists
I'm currently watching a piece of steamed sweet potato make its third, highly ambitious trajectory across my kitchen, propelled by the shockingly strong left arm of a child who, until very recently, was basically a sentient bag of flour. If...
The Absolute Worst Night I Tried Roasting Baby Potatoes
I'm standing there holding a wooden spoon like some kind of medieval weapon, and it's exactly 6:18 PM on a Tuesday. The kind of Tuesday that feels like it's been going on for fourteen actual years. I'm wearing my husband's...
My Utterly Chaotic, Milk-Stained Guide To Sign Language For Babies
It’s 5:43 AM on a Tuesday in November. I'm wearing my husband Dave’s stained gray sweatpants and a maternity tank top that I’m pretty sure has been inside-out since Sunday. Maya is exactly eight months and two days old, and...
Why My First Smashed Baby Potatoes Were a Complete Disaster
I was literally chiseling carbonized potato skins off my one good baking sheet with a butter knife when I realized the internet had completely lied to me again. It was 2019, my oldest son Beau was about eight months old,...
When Do Babies Finally Start Holding Their Own Bottles?
Dear Tom of eighteen months ago. You're currently sitting on the IKEA armchair that smells faintly of sour milk and big defeat, a twin wedged in the crook of each arm. You're trying to balance two plastic bottles using your...
What Age Do Babies Start Crawling? A Tech Dad's Reality Check
I'm lying flat on the cold oak floor of our Portland living room with a digital laser measure, trying to calculate the exact trajectory of my eleven-month-old daughter. She isn't moving toward me. She's pushing herself violently backward like a...
When do babies start clapping: a letter to my panicked past self
Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the jute rug in the living room. Your knees hurt. You have sung some variation of pat-a-cake forty-seven times today. Your coffee is cold and your eight-month-old is staring at...
When Babies Pull to Stand: The Messy, Exhausted Reality
I was wearing my favorite black leggings—the ones with the questionable yogurt stain on the left knee that I'd just sort of given up on washing out entirely—and holding my third cup of lukewarm coffee. It was a Tuesday at...