Why Your Teething Toddler Acts Like a Wild Baby Crocodile
"Bite him back," my mom told me over the phone last Tuesday while I sat on the kitchen floor and iced the fresh, purple teeth marks on my forearm. "That'll teach him right quick." Meanwhile, the crunchy preschool director had...
A letter to myself about the absolute madness of baby cologne
Dear Tom of Six Months Ago, You're currently standing in the hallway of the semi-detached in Balham, holding a tiny, frosted glass bottle gifted by your remarkably chic European mother-in-law. You're staring at the words "Eau de Senteur" printed in...
Why a baby capybara is a terrible pet for your toddler
My sister-in-law texted me a video of a giant rodent eating a popsicle in a plastic wading pool with a message saying we needed to buy one immediately. Two hours later, a mom at the neighborhood park asked me in...
Dear Priya: The messy truth about that baby bullet blender
Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently standing in the kitchen at eleven at night, staring at a massive pile of organic sweet potatoes. You just bought a specialized baby bullet blender, and you're entirely convinced you're going to...
How to Debug the Exact Baby Blue Color Code for Your Nursery
Three different people gave me completely conflicting advice while I was standing in an empty room holding a dry paint roller. My mother-in-law called to insist I needed to find something she referred to as "stork blue" because it supposedly...
Debugging Bath Time: My Quest for a Safe Baby Bathtub
Iβm standing over our stainless steel kitchen sink, my heart rate clocking 130 BPM on my smartwatch, holding what can only be described as a furiously squirming, soap-covered water balloon. My wife Sarah is standing exactly two feet to my...
Debugging Dinner: A Dad's Guide to Oven-Baked Baby Back Ribs
My dad told me that if I didn't cook them over hickory wood on a custom offset charcoal smoker, I was committing a culinary felony. My neighbor Dave leaned over the fence on Tuesday and insisted the only way to...
How Baby ASL Fixed Our 11-Month-Old's Communication Bugs
At 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, I was holding a perfectly warmed, 98.6-degree bottle of formula out like a peace offering, while my eleven-month-old son shrieked like a dial-up modem failing to connect. I tried the bottle again. He slapped...
So, are all babies born with blue eyes? What I actually learned
I was sitting in Mount Sinai hospital, room 412, wearing those horrific mesh underwear and a hospital gown that smelled vaguely of industrial bleach and desperation, holding my two-day-old son Leo. My husband, Dave, had just returned with the worst...