That Time Sir Mix-A-Lot Baby Got Back Literally Saved My Sanity
It was exactly 3:14 AM. I know this because the glowing red numbers on the digital clock were searing themselves into my retinas while I bounced on a deflated blue yoga ball so violently my teeth were literally rattling in...
Debugging Baby Clothes For Boys: A First-Time Dad's Guide
Last Tuesday at 2:14 AM, I was staring at a pile of microscopic blue garments on the changing table, trying to calculate the exact structural integrity of a soaked cotton blend. My 11-month-old son was aggressively doing the bicycle-leg motion...
The Big Baby Detergent Scam (And How I Actually Do Laundry)
I was standing in my laundry room at 3 AM in a pair of sour-milk-stained sweatpants, holding a twenty-four-dollar jug of baby detergent and straight-up sobbing. My oldest, Beau, was upstairs covered in angry red hives, and my mom was...
Dear Jess: The Unfiltered Truth About Buying Baby Detergent
Dear Jess from six months ago, I see you standing there in aisle 14 of the H-E-B in Corsicana, completely frozen. You've got your two-year-old hanging off the front of the shopping cart trying to eat a bruised banana, your...
The truth about newborn diapering and blowout prevention
My lowest parenting moment wasn't the endless crying. It was 3:14 in the morning on day four, standing over a changing table, trying to catch a stream of newborn urine with my bare hand while actively realizing I had fastened...
The 3 AM Baby Powder Disaster That Changed Our Diaper Strategy
The humidity monitor in the nursery read exactly 46 percent, but it felt like a humid jungle as I wrestled my 11-month-old at 3:14 AM. He was furious. He had a diaper rash that looked like angry topography, and I...
How Many Bibs Do I Need For A Newborn? The Spitty Truth
It was Thanksgiving 2017, and Maya was exactly six weeks old. We were at my mother-in-lawβs house, which is basically a museum of white linen and breakable objects, and I was wearing a rust-colored silk blouse because I was, like,...
What I Wish I Knew About Knit Rompers Before Baby Number Three
Dear Jess from six months ago. You're currently standing in the middle of Target, eight months pregnant with your third baby, holding a mustard yellow acrylic one-piece and crying into your iced coffee. Your ankles are swollen to the size...
The Honest Truth About Organic Baby Bibs (And What To Avoid)
I'm currently staring at a mountain of laundry on my living room sofa, and right on top is a graveyard of those stiff, plastic-backed baby bibs I bought for my oldest son five years ago. Bless his heart, he was...