Magazine

Sarah sitting on a beige bathroom rug holding a half-empty bottle of baby oil next to cold coffee

The weird, messy truth about baby mineral oil: A letter to past me

Dear Sarah from last November, You're sitting on the beige bathroom rug at 2 AM. You're wearing those faded black leggings that have a hole near the left knee, you're freezing, and you're drinking your third cup of lukewarm coffee...

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Dad staring blankly at television while twin toddlers destroy the living room

When The Baby-Sitters Club Makes You Question Your Parenting

I was wedged between the living room radiator and a pile of inexplicably sticky building blocks at 5:43 AM on a Tuesday when it happened. Twin A was aggressively gumming a slightly stale rice cake, Twin B was trying to...

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A confused dad holding a bottle of baby oil next to a baby bath

The Ultimate Dad’s Guide to What Baby Oil Is Actually Used For

I was sitting on the floor of our living room, sweating through my t-shirt, trying to peel a heavy-duty waterproof band-aid off my eleven-month-old's thigh without triggering a level-five meltdown. He had scraped his leg on a rogue piece of...

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Hardware-mounted wooden walk-through baby gate at the top of a modern staircase

The Real Truth About Finding A Hardware Mounted Baby Gate With Door

My mother-in-law told me I didn't need one because, in her day, they just watched their kids. The neighborhood Facebook group insisted I needed a custom, four-hundred-dollar lucite barricade imported from Sweden. Then my old charge nurse from the pediatric...

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Dad researching safe piercing spots on his phone while holding his sleeping baby

Finding Safe Baby Ear Piercing Near Me: A Dad’s Honest Review

Hey Marcus from six months ago. You're currently sitting in the dark, bathed in the blue light of your phone at 2:14 AM while Maya sleeps on your chest, casually typing baby ear piercing near me into Google Maps like...

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Tired mom staring at a wall of infant probiotic drops in a pharmacy aisle

The Huge Lie About Infant Gut Health And What We Actually Did

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing Dave's old college sweatshirt that smelled faintly of spit-up and big despair. I was holding our four-month-old, Maya, who was doing that terrifying rigid-board back-arch thing while screaming at...

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Tired mother sitting in a dark nursery looking at her phone

The Viral Nursery Search Trap Every Tired Parent Needs To Avoid

My mother told me to simply keep the tablet in a locked drawer until my daughter is in middle school. My tech-bro cousin from San Jose insisted I need a multi-layer home VPN with military-grade packet sniffing to protect our...

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A confused toddler pointing at a baby skunk under a wooden backyard deck

That Time My Toddler Tried To Pet A Baby Skunk In The Backyard

I was wearing my husband's college sweatpants with the mysterious bleach stain on the knee, holding my third cup of reheated dark roast, just staring blankly at the azalea bushes when Leo screamed, "MOMMY, SPICY KITTEN!" I froze. It was...

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Wooden bear rattle toy resting on a clean playroom floor

A Rat in the Playroom and Why I Tossed All Our Plastic Toys

I was holding a lukewarm mug of chai, stepping over the scattered debris of my toddler's morning play session. Beside the television stand, there was a grey lump. At first, I thought it was just a discarded lint ball from...

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