Why That Online Growth Chart Is Making You Lose Your Mind
I'm standing naked on my cold Chicago bathroom tile at four in the morning. My baby is also naked. I step onto the digital scale, memorize my exact weight, step off, pick up my thrashing three-month-old, step back on, and...
Letter to My Past Self About the Best Baby Car Seats
You're currently sitting in the driver's seat of the Subaru, staring at the rain pounding the windshield while Sarah is upstairs in the triage unit. You're drumming your fingers on the steering wheel, running through mental checklists, feeling a smug...
Otaku Parenting and the Messy Reality of Cute Anime Baby Trends
My sister-in-law cornered me at a family barbecue, holding a dripping hot dog that was dangerously close to my sweater, to insist that if I didn't dress four-month-old Leo in a full Naruto outfit for his first official photos, I...
Surviving the Real Baby Invasion Without Completely Losing Your Mind
It was day four. The milk had just come in. My living room was littered with breast pump parts, half-empty water bottles, and those terrible mesh hospital underwear. My husband was sitting on the edge of the sofa, bathed in...
Baby I'm Yours: The Real Cost of Bringing Your First Home
I vividly remember sitting in the driver's seat of my beat-up Ford Escape in a sweltering South Texas Target parking lot, nine months pregnant with my oldest. The air conditioner was fighting for its life, and I was blasting my...
Why The Baby Highland Cow Trend Completely Took Over My Life
There's a piece of dried pampas grass currently jabbing me in the left nostril as I bend over to pick up a discarded sock, and I've just realized I'm staring directly into the soulful, watercolor eyes of a shaggy Scottish...
My Humiliating Physics Lesson on Staircase Barriers
I was standing at the top of our fourteen-step Portland craftsman staircase holding a plastic tension rod barrier, a laser level, and a completely false sense of confidence. My wife, Sarah, paused on her way to the kitchen, shifting our...
The Panicked Dad's Guide to Buying Tiny Metal Ear Ornaments
The 19-year-old holding what looked like a neon pink staple gun was snapping her chewing gum with rhythmic, terrifying precision. I stood perfectly still on the sticky floor of the high street accessory shop, gripping the handle of the double...
The Myth of the Book Baby and Why My Twins Refused to Read It
At twenty past three on a damp Tuesday morning in our entirely too small London flat, I found myself holding a screaming infant in one arm while desperately trying to flip the pages of a sleep-training manual with my teeth....