Vetting Caregiver Platforms & Stopping the Sugar Baby Madness
It was exactly 10:14 PM on a Tuesday, which is already a deeply offensive time for me to be awake, let alone wearing hard pants. My husband Mark and I had just gotten back from our first actual "date night"...
When Can Babies Eat Solid Food Without Ruining My Life
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was sitting in the dark nursery wearing a nursing tank that smelled strongly of sour milk and desperation. Leo, my oldest, was four months old and currently latched onto me like...
How We Survived Slow Cooker Pork Ribs Without A Trip To The ER
The apartment smelled like brown sugar and smoked wood. It was a freezing November Sunday in Chicago, and I had the slow cooker going on low since six in the morning. Rohan was eight months old, sitting in his high...
Decoding Baby Lasagna: How to Feed Your Infant Without a System Crash
My mom called me on a Tuesday to say she fed me Stoufferβs frozen meat lasagna when I was six months old and I turned out completely fine, which is debatable considering my current anxiety levels. Ten minutes later, my...
Why a baby harp seal cured my ridiculous mom guilt
The rhythmic, mechanical wheezing of my breast pump at 3:17 AM is the soundtrack to my biggest parenting epiphanies. There I was with my oldest kid, Liam, about four years ago. I was exhausted, leaking milk onto a pile of...
The Truth About Baby Gravy: Why Sunday Roasts Need a Rewrite
It's 2019. Sunday roast at my mother-in-law's house. Maya is eight months old and currently mashing a piece of dry chicken into her highchair tray with the kind of intense focus usually reserved for defusing bombs. My mother-in-law, bless her,...
Is the $25 Baby Chair Ikea Sells Actually Safe for Weaning?
It was 98 degrees in late July, the Texas humidity was thick enough to chew, and I was standing in my front yard in flip-flops blasting a white plastic bucket seat with the jet setting on my garden hose. Neon...
The Ikea Baby Chair Truth: Posture, Choking & Cleaning
My mother-in-law wanted me to register for a leather-bound high chair that cost more than my first car. My occupational therapist friend cornered me at a brunch to explain that any baby chair without a perfectly adjustable, solid oak footplate...
When do babies stop drinking formula: my messy transition
I was standing over my kitchen sink at 11:45 PM, aggressively scrubbing the tiny, useless plastic vents of a baby bottle for what felt like the millionth time. Chicago winters already destroy your skin, but adding hot water and dish...