Magazine

Marcus staring at a slow cooker of meatballs while holding a digital thermometer.

Dear Past Marcus: Debugging the Baby Shower Meatballs Crisis

I've got a digital meat thermometer plunged into the geometric center of a frozen sphere of ground turkey, and the reading is hopelessly stuck at 138Β°F. It's 11:30 PM on a Friday. The kitchen smells like a confusing collision of...

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Baby looking confused at a messy bowl of pureed food

The unspoken truth about baby rice cereal and starting solids

My mother-in-law was hovering by the kitchen island at two in the morning, holding a cardboard box of generic infant flakes and shaking it at my husband like it was a maraca. She whispered that if we just put a...

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Exhausted dad looking at a kitchen wall covered in dried infant oats.

Why The Great Baby Oatmeal Cereal Incident Finally Broke My Spirit

It's 11:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I'm staring at a perfectly spherical glob of beige paste slowly sliding down my otherwise immaculate kitchen window. It hangs there for a moment, defying gravity, before dropping directly onto the cat's head....

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Sarah's kitchen counter covered in orange sweet potato splatters and a spoon.

The Great Sweet Potato Incident: A Very Messy Guide to First Foods

It was a Tuesday at exactly 2:14 PM, and I was wearing my husband Dave's gray college t-shirt that had a mysterious, crusty stain on the left shoulder. I was sitting at our kitchen island, staring blankly at the wall,...

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A fresh sprig of rosemary next to a wooden baby teether on a kitchen counter

Is Rosemary Safe for Babies? A Mom's Honest Story

I was staring at a twenty-four dollar bottle of "all-natural botanical" baby massage oil in my kitchen trash can at two in the morning while my oldest son, Beau, screamed bloody murder in the other room. His tiny back was...

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A frustrated mom holding a baby in a grocery store aisle looking at labels.

What nobody tells you about babies and the great sugar debate

I was standing in my kitchen last Thanksgiving, elbow-deep in a massive pot of mashed potatoes, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom unwrapping a little caramel log. She was aiming it right at my...

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exhausted millennial mom holding a crying teething baby in the kitchen

Teething Nightmares, 90s Nostalgia, and the Vanilla Ice Ice Ice Baby

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and our kitchen floor was aggressively cold. Maya was six months old and shrieking like a tiny, angry banshee because her bottom left tooth was trying to break through her gums with the...

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A baby covered in spaghetti sauce during a messy mealtime at the highchair.

What Is Baby Led Weaning? My Messy, Honest Survival Story

It was 2:14 PM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing a gray nursing tank that smelled faintly of sour milk and desperation. I was standing in the middle of my kitchen, holding a giant, freshly steamed floret of broccoli...

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Twin baby girls covered in mashed sweet potato sitting in high chairs

When Can Babies Eat Baby Food? A Dad's Guide To The Mess

It was 5:43 PM on a Tuesday, and I was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, using a single wet wipe to scrape what used to be a premium organic avocado off the skirting board. Above me, my twin daughters...

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