Magazine

A stressed mom in sweatpants drinking coffee while her toddler plays with a wooden baby drill toy on the living room floor.

What The Drill Baby Drill Slogan Actually Means For Parents

Dear Sarah from last October, I know exactly where you're right now. It’s 7:14 AM on a Tuesday. You're standing in the kitchen wearing those tragic gray sweatpants with the mysterious hole in the left thigh, holding your second—no, let's...

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Two toddlers in rain boots pointing at a sheep in a muddy farm park enclosure.

Farmyard Crises and Explaining Baby Sheep to Toddlers

I'm standing ankle-deep in something I'm desperately praying is just mud at Mudchute Farm, trying to wipe half a chewed oat biscuit off Twin A’s cheek, when Twin B extends a sticky, demanding finger toward the livestock enclosure. The sky...

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Exhausted dad holding two toddlers while trying to dodge a flying wooden block

Why "hit me baby one more time" is my parenting reality

Last Tuesday at our local library's rhythm and rhyme session, Florence landed a shockingly accurate left hook directly onto my nose just as we were gearing up for the second verse of The Wheels on the Bus. The elderly librarian...

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Toddler looking at a blank wooden toy instead of a digital tablet screen

The Kim Kardashian Santa Baby Video Is An Algorithm Nightmare

Listen. The biggest lie they sell us about modern motherhood is the safety of the search bar. You think you can type a harmless holiday song into the television, hand over the remote, and buy yourself exactly four minutes to...

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An 11-month-old baby holding a chunky crayon with a fist grip on a messy paper

The Myth of Baby Art and How to Actually Survive It

I’m currently staring at a active purple streak on the toe of my left sneaker. It arrived there about an hour ago, during what my wife and I ambitiously labeled "creative enrichment time." The biggest myth of modern parenting—propagated almost...

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A tired pregnant mother drinking coffee while her toddler plays aggressively with a soft toy on the rug.

The Great Toddler Empathy Crisis and My Stained Maternity Shirt

I was exactly thirty-four weeks pregnant with Maya, sweating profoundly through a mustard-yellow maternity top that had a coffee stain shaped exactly like Florida right on the collarbone. It was 3:14 PM on a Tuesday, which is universally the worst...

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A toddler looking at a tablet while holding a silicone panda teether

Confessions of a pediatric nurse about screen time and animated shows

It's a Tuesday in late November. The wind off Lake Michigan is rattling our apartment windows, and the radiators are hissing that dry winter heat that makes your throat scratchy. My son Rohan is gripping my pant leg, doing that...

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Exhausted mom drinking coffee while toddler acts like a baby boss.

Letter to Past Me: How to Survive the Real-Life Baby Boss Phase

It’s 6:43 AM on a Tuesday, and I'm sitting on the cold linoleum of the kitchen floor wearing the grey sweatpants with the mystery yogurt stain on the left thigh, clutching a mug of tepid French roast like it’s a...

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A frustrated mom looking at a flexible mesh baby gate spanning a hallway.

The Blunt Truth About Retractable Baby Gates (And My Worst Night)

It was 6:15 PM, I had a half-empty jar of marinara sauce tucked under my left arm, a screaming six-month-old anchored on my right hip, and my two-year-old was actively trying to feed the dog a AAA battery he found...

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