Magazine

A vintage Beanie Baby sitting safely on a high shelf out of reach from a baby

A Note From The Future About That October 6 Beanie Baby Idea

Dear Marcus from six months ago, you're currently hovering your cursor over the "Buy It Now" button on eBay at 2:14 AM while your five-month-old is finally asleep after what felt like a system-wide hardware failure. You've just discovered that...

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Vintage October 30th Beanie Baby bat on a nursery shelf next to organic clothes

The exact october 30th beanie baby that broke my brain

I'm sitting on the cold linoleum floor of my laundry room in a nursing bra that hasn't seen the inside of a washing machine in at least three days, aggressively refreshing an eBay tab on my cracked iPhone with one...

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A vintage nineties plush toy sitting on a nursery shelf next to organic baby clothes

Dear past me, that vintage october 20th beanie baby is a trap

Listen, Priya from six months ago. You're sitting on the living room rug, staring at a crushed cardboard box that just arrived from your auntie in New Jersey. Inside is a pristine, tag-protected raccoon named Snoops. You're thinking it's incredibly...

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Vintage skeleton and dog plush toys sitting safely on a modern nursery shelf

Debugging the October 18 Beanie Baby Birthday Twin Trend

I was standing in the cramped, patchouli-scented aisle of a vintage shop on Hawthorne Boulevard, triumphantly holding a dusty plush skeleton from the year 2000. I thought I had just executed a brilliant parenting hack. My niece was about to...

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Vintage october 15 beanie baby next to a modern organic cotton bodysuit on a nursery shelf.

Chasing the October 15 Beanie Baby: A New Dad's Reality Check

My mother-in-law's package arrived at our Portland apartment on a rainy Tuesday, smelling faintly of attic dust and the Clinton administration. Inside was a neon-orange plush pumpkin with hard plastic eyes staring blankly into the void. Sarah, my wife, immediately...

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A tired dad looking at a spreadsheet of baby gifts on his laptop.

Troubleshooting the New Mums and Baby Gifts Australia Market

Three different people gave me completely conflicting advice when my sister in Sydney had her baby last month. My neighbor here in Portland told me to ship a six-foot plush kangaroo because "babies love scale." My childless project manager suggested...

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Me drinking cold coffee while my toddler plays with a silicone teething toy on the living room rug.

How a Tiny Mola Fish Baby Fixed My Sustainable Parenting Guilt

It was 6:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing Dave’s old college sweatpants backwards because the dog had thrown up on mine. I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, clutching yesterday’s lukewarm coffee in a chipped...

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A tired father watching his twin daughters make a massive mess with ground beef

The absolute terror of serving meat baby food to a six-month-old

There I was, standing in our kitchen at half past seven in the morning, staring at a cardboard tube of organic baby rice that looked and smelled exactly like the Polyfilla I used to patch the hallway skirting board last...

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Dried white baby's breath flowers in a glass mason jar

The Truth About Baby's Breath Flowers (And Why I Threw Mine Out)

Dave was holding a black lawn-and-leaf trash bag open while I aggressively shoved thirty mason jars of dried white flowers into it, weeping slightly, wearing only a nursing bra and a pair of his grey sweatpants. There was crumbly white...

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