Magazine

Confused dad holding an infant covered in pureed sweet potatoes

The Great Gerber Baby Myth and The Reality of Infant Parenting

I'm currently staring at a smear of what I think is pureed sweet potato on my kitchen ceiling. I don't know how it got up there. My son is eleven months old, sits exactly thirty-two inches below that spot in...

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A tired father attempting to feed twin babies who are covered in orange purΓ©e

The great purΓ©e delusion: Surviving the transition to solids

I'm staring at forty-two perfectly uniform, ice-cube-sized blocks of steamed organic courgette, all painstakingly decanted into a premium silicone freezer tray at one in the morning. This was my Everest. I had spent an entire Sunday boiling, blending, and portioning...

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A wooden baby guitar next to a vintage record player in a messy Chicago apartment

The Baby Beluga Musician Was Right About Everything All Along

The radiator in our Chicago apartment was making that rhythmic clicking sound it only makes at three in the morning. My toddler was executing a flawless, rigid back-arch scream, the kind that usually shows either a dropped pacifier or a...

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A cast iron skillet with a puffed pancake on a messy kitchen counter

The truth about raising a dutch baby (and eating one)

I'm currently scraping dried egg batter off my kitchen cabinet at seven in the morning while my toddler aggressively signs for more bananas. This is the exact opposite of the tranquil, well-rested maternal ideal I had pictured when I started...

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Toddler sitting on a rug playing independently with natural wooden blocks.

Why We Need To Talk About The Nepo Baby Meaning In Parenting

Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the living room floor at two in the morning with three laptops open. You're hitting refresh on the Lincoln Park cooperative preschool waitlist portal. You think if you just email...

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A tired dad holding his 11 month old baby while wearing a star wars shirt

Why A Tiny Green Alien Explains My Entire First Year Of Fatherhood

It's 3:14 AM, and my eleven-month-old is currently trying to shove a completely intact, unpeeled banana into his left ear while maintaining unblinking, terrifying eye contact with me. I'm wearing sweatpants I haven't washed since Tuesday and a Mandalorian t-shirt...

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A messy living room with scattered baby toys and a television glowing in the dark.

Why the Baby Driver Cast Fooled Me on Family Movie Night

My oldest boy, Jackson, is standing dead center in the living room wearing mismatched dinosaur pajamas, clutching a half-eaten string cheese like a microphone, and staring completely wide-eyed at our television screen. It's 9:45 PM on a Friday. He's supposed...

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A tired mom holding a coffee mug looking at a baby registry checklist on her laptop.

The Truth About That Massive Amazon Baby Registry Checklist

I was exactly thirty-two weeks pregnant with my oldest, sitting on the floor of my half-painted nursery at two in the morning, sobbing uncontrollably because a little green progress bar on my laptop told me my list was only forty...

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A confused dad looking at his baby holding a wooden teething ring instead of a smartphone screen.

Debugging the baby shark phase: Viral videos and double teeth

Don't ever assume an algorithm knows how to soothe your kid better than you do. I learned this the hard way at a coffee shop on Hawthorne last Tuesday, thinking a quick blast of YouTube would act as a temporary...

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