Why Your Screaming Newborn Is Basically A Hairless Baby Toucan
I spent three solid months before my oldest was born painting his nursery the perfect shade of 'oatmeal' and buying tiny, stiff linen button-downs that cost more than my weekly grocery budget. My oldest kid is basically a walking cautionary...
The Cutest Baby Animals Myth: Why Toddlers Are Wildlife Menaces
My left hand is currently clamped around the collar of a toddler who's vibrating with the intense, terrifying desire to strangle a squirrel with pure love. We're in St. James’s Park, it's raining, and I'm actively disproving the greatest myth...
Finding a Nest in the Garden: A Warning About Infant Rabbits
Dear Tom from exactly six months ago. Right now, you're standing in the middle of the back garden holding a half-eaten Hobnob, wearing only one wellington boot, while your two-year-old twin daughters scream with a terrifying mixture of joy and...
Dear Past Jess: The Brutal Truth About Raising A Baby Parrot
There's weird, lukewarm yellow formula cemented into my hair, the digital food thermometer is blinking an angry red 106 degrees at me, and I'm sitting on the cold linoleum of the laundry room floor at two in the morning desperately...
Put That Tupperware Down: The Reality Of Backyard Reptiles
My four-year-old marched into the kitchen yesterday looking like he had just won the lottery. His hands were cupped so tightly together his knuckles were white, and he had that wild, unblinking stare kids get when they're holding something they...
That time my seven-year-old demanded we get a baby leopard
It was Tuesday around 4:15 PM, raining, and I was wearing those grey sweatpants with the mysterious bleach stain on the left thigh. Maya, who's seven and currently in her aggressively vocal animal rights phase, dropped her neon pink backpack...
The Tuesday Morning Hamster Trauma: Why Do Hamsters Eat Their Babies
It was 7:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was standing in the sunroom wearing one slipper, an oversized t-shirt with a questionable yogurt stain on the shoulder, and holding my second cup of coffee because my four-year-old, Leo, had...
Exactly What Is A Baby Fox Called? (And Other Garden Debates)
Don't confidently tell your two-year-old twins that the small, twitchy orange creature currently investigating a discarded nappy by your garden bins is a 'puppy.' I made this exact catastrophic error last Tuesday at 6:15 am, desperate for five more minutes...
Why Tiny Panther Movies and Reptile Pets Break Baby's System
I was holding exactly one half of a mashed banana when my seven-year-old nephew, visiting from Seattle for the weekend, loudly demanded we acquire a baby panther. It was 7:15 AM on a Saturday. My eleven-month-old son was currently mashing...