Magazine

A dad looking exhausted while holding two newborn twins in blankets

The gloriously absurd reality of making a test tube baby in your 30s

"So," my Great-Aunt Maureen leaned in over a plate of increasingly stale buffet sandwiches at a family wedding, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Are they test tube babies?" I looked down at my twin girls, who were currently...

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Two baby goats standing on a wooden bench looking confused

The Pastoral Fantasy Delusion: Surviving Baby Goats

It was 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, I was covered in a thin but distinct layer of regurgitated infant milk, and I was knee-deep in a Rightmove spiral looking at semi-derelict farmhouses in Somerset. The twins had been tag-teaming a...

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Tired mother drinking coffee while a baby plays on a wooden playmat

What A 3 AM Bird Search Taught Me About Surviving The Newborn Phase

I was standing in the kitchen at 3:14 AM wearing my husband's college sweatpants that had this unidentifiable crust on the left knee, vibrating with the kind of exhaustion that makes your teeth hurt. Leo was about four weeks old...

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Exhausted dad trying to measure a squirming toddler on a wooden floor

The Great Lil Baby Height Panic: A Dad's Late Night Mistakes

The metal tape measure snapped back with the terrifying velocity of a striking cobra, narrowly missing my left eye and causing Twin B to shriek with such piercing intensity that the neighbour's dog immediately began howling in sympathy. It was...

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A heavily pregnant woman attempting a yoga inversion on a sofa.

Gravity, sofas, and the dizzying truth about spinning babies

"Don't try to pull me by the shoulders, Tom, you'll misalign my pelvis," Sarah hissed. She was currently suspended upside down with her knees on our mustard yellow sofa and her forearms flat on the living room rug, her face...

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A simple wooden play gym on a messy rug surrounded by organic toddler clothes.

How To Raise A Baby Dolphin Without Losing Your British Mind

At exactly 6:14 AM on a bleak Tuesday, I was standing in our London kitchen trying to enforce what a very expensive hardcover parenting book called a "structured learning boundary" while Maya systematically crushed a rice cake into the tile...

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A tired dad staring at his phone in a dark room (max 125 chars)

Why Searching Baby Dolls Dallas Is A Hilarious Parenting Mistake

Texas, for those who haven't had the pleasure of dragging a jet-lagged toddler through it, is less a state and more an ongoing experiment in aggressive air conditioning. We were staying in an Airbnb that smelled faintly of cinnamon and...

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Baby wearing a flowy baby doll top playing with a soft toy on a bamboo blanket

Debugging The Silhouette: Why My Kid Wears Baby Doll Tops

3:14 AM. I'm holding a piece of fabric that looks like a miniature maternity dress, trying to calculate the best trajectory for pulling it over my 11-month-old’s wildly thrashing head. It has a seam that stops abruptly right under the...

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Toddler twin girls roaring in the living room wearing dinosaur outfits

Surviving the baby dinosaur phase without losing your mind

Don't, under any circumstances, attempt to correct a two-year-old on the precise anatomical posture of a Stegosaurus. I learned this at 6:14 AM on a Tuesday, standing in my kitchen holding a lukewarm mug of tea while Twin One shrieked...

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