Why I Finally Ditched the Neon Plastic Baby Play Gym
It was a Tuesday, roughly 2:15 PM in late October 2017. Maya was exactly fourteen weeks old, and I was wearing a pair of dark grey maternity leggings that I had absolutely no intention of retiring anytime soon. They had...
Babyhose Mit Breitem Bund: Why Tiny Jeans Are A Terrible Idea
I'm staring at a pair of baby jeans. They have real copper rivets. A functional metal zipper. And a waistband that looks like it was designed for a heavily corseted Victorian doll, not a three-month-old who drinks liquid fat every...
Why a Basic Rassel Toy Beat My High-Tech Baby Parenting Theories
I'm sitting on the living room rug surrounded by three different glowing screens, a Wi-Fi enabled bassinet that tracks micro-movements, and a massive spreadsheet charting exactly how many ounces of milk my son has consumed since Tuesday. On the main...
The Chicken Bone Incident: Unpacking the Food Teethers Trend
I'm staring at my son, who's currently aggressively making out with a stripped chicken drumstick bone. My wife, Sarah, handed it to him exactly four minutes ago. I'm hovering three inches away, sweat pooling in the collar of my Portland...
The Truth About the Toy Blanket (And Why Your Baby Needs One)
My older cousin stared at the graying, spit-up-stained square of muslin clutched in my toddler's fist and let out a long, theatrical sigh. We were at a family dinner, and she felt the need to inform me that letting my...
Why the organic jersey baby tee is the only shirt you need
It was three in the morning in the pediatric step-down unit when I watched a first-time dad try to wrestle a stiff, miniature chambray button-down over his screaming newborn's freshly placed IV line. He was sweating right through his hospital...
What I Got Entirely Wrong About Dressing A Human In Baby Pants
There I was at three in the morning, holding a tiny pair of denim jeans with a functional metal zipper, trying to thread the flailing legs of a screaming three-week-old into them. It was my first month of motherhood. I...
Why Your Plastic Baby Rattle Might Be A Terrible Idea
My mother-in-law brought over a solid silver shaker straight from a jeweler in Delhi. A woman in my mom group swore by a terrifying plastic monstrosity that flashed strobe lights and played generic techno beats. My doctor looked at both...
The newborn rattle timeline from potato stage to blunt force trauma
I was standing in the kitchen at 4am, holding a plastic object that resembled a neon torture device, trying to work out why my three-week-old daughters were actively ignoring it. It was a Tuesday. Or possibly a Thursday. Time becomes...