The truth about surviving the baby groot merchandise invasion
I was elbow-deep under the sofa cushions on a Tuesday morning, executing a routine sweep for rogue Cheerios and whatever sticky substance had claimed the TV remote, when my fingers brushed against something hard, plastic, and distinctly anatomical. I pulled...
The Great Baby Book Delusion: Expectations vs Actual Reality
I'm currently looking at a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar that has been so thoroughly chewed, sucked, and dismantled by my twin two-year-old daughters that it looks less like a beloved piece of children's literature and more like something...
Why That Viral Bush Baby TikTok Is A Terrible Idea For Your Toddler
My cousin in Miami texted me a video of a tiny primate eating a grape on Tuesday and told me I should get one for Maya's second birthday. Three hours later, a girl in my local mom group forwarded the...
What The Bhad Bhabie Cautionary Tale Teaches Modern Parents
Listen. Last week, my mother-in-law told me I should delete every single photo of my toddler from the internet because the world is entirely composed of predators. The next morning, a fellow nurse at the clinic insisted I need to...
A letter to myself before I pressed play on that movie
Dear Priya from six months ago. Listen. Put down the television remote and step away from the streaming menu. I know it's eight in the evening, your toddler has been screaming about steering wheels since naptime, and you're operating on...
The day my mother's vintage toy hoard almost ruined our lives
I was elbow-deep in a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal on a miserable, sleeting Chicago afternoon when my mother dragged a black Hefty garbage bag into my apartment. She had the frantic, secretive energy of someone smuggling contraband across a border....
My toxic relationship with that glowing Baby Einstein aquarium
It's 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in November. I'm standing barefoot in the hallway, wearing a stained nursing tank that I still haven't washed even though my son Leo is three and Maya is eight months old, and I'm practically...
Why baby dolls took over my flat (and what the science says)
I'm currently staring at a small, disembodied plastic leg poking out from beneath our sofa. It belongs to βBaby Susanβ, a doll who has suffered more blunt force trauma in the past three weeks than an amateur rugby player. If...
The ugly truth about that baby alive doll hiding in your playroom
I'm standing over my kitchen sink at eleven at night with a pair of surgical tweezers, trying to extract a solid black clump of fermented synthetic cherry mush from the plastic esophagus of a toy. This is not how I...