Dear Jess: Stop buying the velvet holiday dresses for your baby
It's currently July, you're sweating completely through your maternity shorts in the hundred-degree Texas heat, and for some ungodly reason, you're scrolling the internet looking at a stiff, synthetic red velvet monstrosity with eighty-two sequins on it. I need you...
Debugging Your Kid's Wardrobe: The Ultimate Graphic Baby Tee
It was 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I had seventeen browser tabs open, deeply confused about how the internet works. Leo, my 11-month-old son, had finally entered a sleep cycle that didn't involve him kicking me in the ribs,...
The sweet potato incident and the messy truth about infant spoons
There was sweet potato puree on the ceiling. I still don't fully understand the physics of how it got there, but there it was, a bright orange smear right next to the smoke detector in our Chicago apartment. My son...
Why I Stopped Trusting the Internet About Early Development Toys
When my son was about four days old, my mother-in-law bought us a plastic command center that flashed strobe lights and yelled the alphabet in a robotic British accent. "He needs cognitive stimulation," she told me with absolute certainty. The...
How to Buy Good Bibs for Adults Without Sacrificing Dignity
We were twenty minutes into Thanksgiving dinner two years ago when it happened. My grandmother, who has always dressed like she’s about to have tea with the Queen, was trying to lift a spoonful of gravy. Her hand gave that...
Surviving loud baby gifts for boys and what parents actually want
It was 2:14 in the morning on a Tuesday. I was standing in the dark hallway of our Chicago apartment, holding a baby who had finally stopped crying after forty-five minutes of unexplained misery. The silence was thick and fragile....
Why I Tossed That Amber Teething Necklace Straight in the Trash
I was sitting in the nursery rocking chair at three in the morning with a baby who had completely saturated his third onesie of the night with pure drool. My oldest son—who's basically the walking, talking cautionary tale for every...
The Great Bath Time Scam: What To Actually Put On Infant Skin
I was standing in aisle 14 of Target at 8:47 PM on a Tuesday, wearing my husband’s paint-stained sweatpants and aggressively clutching a lukewarm oat milk latte. My phone was vibrating out of my hand with three different text threads....
Zähne Baby: The Brutal Truth About Surviving the Teething Apocalypse
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday when I woke up to a sound I can only describe as a hyperactive beaver trapped in the nursery. I stumbled in, entirely blind, and found Maya standing in her cot, aggressively gnawing...