Why We Traded Stuffy Showers for the Modern Co-Ed Baby Bash
I'm sitting on a pastel-pink velvet chair in a suburban banquet hall watching my cousin unwrap her nineteenth burp cloth. Someone is measuring her waist with toilet paper while a group of aunts I haven't seen since my wedding stare...
The Reality of Dressing a Baby Without Losing Your Mind
Within forty-eight hours of bringing Leo home from the hospital, I received three completely contradictory pieces of advice about how to dress him. My mother-in-law hovered over his bassinet, clutching her coffee mug, aggressively whispering that he needed a fleece...
The brutal truth about infant wardrobes and diaper blowouts
My mother-in-law walked into my recovery room and immediately tried to put a fleece hat on my two-day-old son. An hour later, the lactation consultant breezed in and told me to strip him down to his diaper so he wouldn't...
My Coffee Disaster and the Wild Reality of Sixty-Year-Old Parenting
My feet were literally sticking to the linoleum. It's 6:12 AM on a Tuesday, I'm wearing Mark's faded college hoodie that smells permanently like old milk and vague regret, and Maya is aggressively trying to shove a plastic triceratops into...
How to Pick a Girl Baby Name When Everyone Has an Opinion
I was thirty-two weeks pregnant with my second, sweating through my maternity leggings at a baby shower I didn't even want to have, staring at a plate of lukewarm spinach dip while three different women cornered me about names. My...
When Your Baby Refuses to Flip (My Honest Breech Experience)
I was thirty-six weeks pregnant with my oldest when the ultrasound tech got real quiet, typed something furiously on her little keyboard, and excused herself to get the doctor. Cut to twenty minutes later in the H-E-B parking lot where...
The "Be My Baby" Delusion: Surviving Your First Year Alive
I'm sitting on the edge of a creaky glider at 4:17 AM while my oldest, Wyatt, arches his back like a feral cat who just got dipped in cold water. I remember standing there in the dark, smelling vaguely of...
Surviving the Baby Spice Era: Turmeric Stains and 90s Pop
There's a very specific, aggressive shade of yellow that a pulverized carrot takes on when you enthusiastically fold half a teaspoon of turmeric into it, and I can tell you exactly what it looks like because it's currently permanently bonded...
Why Looking Up Ice Ice Baby Lyrics At 3 AM Changed My Parenting
It was 3:17 in the morning, and my oldest was screaming with the kind of red-faced, breathless stamina that makes you seriously question your life choices. I was sitting on a cheap, half-deflated yoga ball in our drafty Texas farmhouse,...