Magazine
Surviving the drama of your baby's first christmas ornament
I was sitting on the floor of our freezing Chicago apartment with a vacuum in one hand and a bleeding thumb in the other. My mother-in-law had just left. Her gift had lasted exactly four seconds out of the tissue...
Pediatric Nurse Guide: Surviving Your First Baby Wrap Carrier
My mother-in-law told me that tying a baby to my chest would ruin his spine forever and give him flat feet. Then my lactation consultant said if I didn't wear him twenty-four hours a day, he would inevitably develop an...
The Great Hydration Panic: Why Infant Water Rules Feel Backwards
It was the great London heatwave of 2022, the kind of oppressive humidity that makes you reconsider all your life choices, when I caught my mother-in-law creeping toward the pram with a miniature plastic cup of tap water. The twins...
The completely honest truth about buying baby walking shoes
I was standing in the middle of a high-end boutique holding a pair of tiny, structurally rigid leather high-tops that cost more than my weekly grocery haul. My daughter wasn't even pulling to stand yet, but the footwear had these...
Dear Past Me: Surviving Your Husband's Grumpy Anime Dad Phase
Hey Jess from six months ago. I know exactly where you're right now. You're hiding in the laundry room, sitting on top of the humming dryer for warmth, stress-eating a bag of stale Goldfish crackers you found in a toddler's...
Why We Said No To Pet Turtles (And What To Teach Kids Instead)
We were at the Canton First Monday Trade Days, sweating through our shirts in the brutal Texas heat, when my oldest, Jackson, locked eyes with a plastic tub the size of a cereal bowl. Inside it was a tiny green...
A dad's guide to the elusive baby turkey (and weaning woes)
It was 5:17 in the morning when the farm animal flap-book aggressively entered my peripheral vision, wielded by Twin A, who had somehow escaped her sleeping bag and decided that the pre-dawn darkness was the ideal time for agricultural education....
Surviving Midnight Fevers: The Thermometers That Actually Work
I was standing in the master bathroom completely naked at two in the morning, trying to read a plastic pacifier thermometer by the light of my iPhone flash while my firstborn screamed like I was actively torturing him. That was...
Why Talking to Your Infant Like a Roommate Actually Works
The biggest, most pervasive lie we're sold about motherhood is that you need a degree in early childhood development and a voice that shatters glass to properly entertain an infant. I used to actually make my throat sore trying to...