My kid turned into a highlighter (and other early release bugs)
It was day three of parenthood, and I was holding my naked son up to a rain-streaked Portland window like Rafiki presenting Simba, convinced that forty-five seconds of overcast Pacific Northwest UV radiation would magically fix his liver. My wife,...
Surviving Your First Baby Xray Without Completely Losing Your Mind
It was a Tuesday at 9 AM, and I was sitting in a freezing radiology waiting room wearing yesterdayβs leggings and a nursing bra that smelled faintly of sour milk. I was staring blankly at a poster of a cartoon...
Surviving the Nightly Baby Toothbrush Wrestling Match in Sweatpants
It's 7:42 PM on a Tuesday. I'm wearing a pair of gray fleece sweatpants that haven't seen the inside of a washing machine since the Obama administration. My left knee is firmly but gently pinning an eight-month-old Maya to the...
Why I Stopped Trusting the Box My Baby Rocking Chair Came In
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in 2017, and I was standing in my dark kitchen wearing a nursing bra that smelled aggressively like sour milk and Daveβs oversized college sweatpants, staring at this beige, gently vibrating infant seat...
How To Relieve Constipation In Babies Quickly (Without Panicking)
Dear Tom of eighteen months ago. You're currently standing in the kitchen at 3:17 AM, illuminated only by the aggressive LED glow of the microwave clock, holding a completely rigid infant. Mayaβs face is the exact shade of a Royal...
The Reality Of Having A Tongue Tied Baby And What Actually Works
There's a rumor running through modern parenting groups that clipping a tiny piece of tissue under your newborn's tongue will magically cure colic, fix sleep regressions, and make them stop crying when you put them down. I used to sit...
What I Wish I Knew Before Feeding My Baby Real Food
Dear Marcus from six months ago: Right now, you're staring at a piece of steamed broccoli, sweating through your gray t-shirt, completely convinced that handing this tiny green tree to your six-month-old daughter is a catastrophic user error. You've spent...
A Letter To Myself About The Baby Humidifier Situation
Dear Jess of last November. You're currently standing in the baby aisle of Target at two in the morning, staring bleary-eyed at a wall of plastic water-blowing machines while your four-month-old sounds like a tiny, asthmatic pug in the shopping...
The truth about baby gronk age and our toxic prodigy obsession
The six-year-old was sitting on the examination table with an ice pack on his knee, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else on earth. His dad was standing next to him in full athletic gear, holding a clipboard and...