Magazine

A tired mom looking at baby shower invitations for a girl on her laptop

The brutal reality of picking baby shower invitations for a girl

I was twenty-six weeks pregnant, eating fruit antacids like they were candy, staring at my laptop at two in the morning. The screen was a sea of aggressively pink digital paper. The search query was simple enough. I was just...

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Toddler wearing soft knit baby shoes while walking on a wooden floor

The Truth About Baby Feet: Why Those Tiny Shoes Are a Scam

My mother-in-law held up a pair of hot pink, patent leather, miniature high heels at my baby shower like she had just extracted a rare diamond from a mine. I smiled, nodded, and immediately mentally categorized them as biohazard waste....

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A bewildered British dad looking at a list of southern baby girl names next to twin babies.

Why We Chose Southern Baby Girl Names for London Twins

Picture the exact opposite of a sun-drenched veranda in Savannah. It's 3:47 in the morning at a central London hospital. Outside, the rain is aggressively lashing against the window in that distinctly British, soul-destroying way that makes you question why...

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A tired mother looking at a list of modern naming options for her daughter

The brutal reality of picking rare names for your daughter

I spent three years working the night shift on the maternity floor at Rush. You want to know the actual hardest part of the job. It wasn't the meconium blowouts or the frantic monitor alarms at two in the morning....

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Dad looking confused in a party supply store aisle holding a pink tutu

How We Debugged Baby Girl Shower Themes Without Pink Glitter

I was holding a plastic tiara that smelled strongly of volatile organic compounds, staring down an aisle that looked like a flamingo had spontaneously combusted. My wife was twenty-nine weeks pregnant with our first baby, currently asleep in the passenger...

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A tired mother sitting on a nursery floor holding a cup of coffee

What Nicole Kidman actually gets right about maternal burnout

Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the bathroom tiles at three in the morning. The radiator is making that hissing sound you hate. Your daughter just threw up milk on your only clean sweatpants, and you're...

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Exhausted dad holding twin baby girls while looking at a name list

The Great 3AM Hunt for Baby Girl Names Starting With V

The glow of the laptop screen at three in the morning is a uniquely hostile type of light, especially when it’s illuminating a spreadsheet containing seventy-four potential names for a human being you haven't even met yet. Outside our London...

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Bewildered dad looking at a spreadsheet of woodland nursery themes with coffee

The Algorithm for a Delayed Shower That Doesn't Suck

Dear Marcus from exactly six months ago. You're currently sitting at the kitchen island, staring at a Google Sheet titled Party_Logistics_V3.xlsx, while our five-month-old daughter aggressively chews on a silicone spatula. Since we moved to Portland at 38 weeks pregnant,...

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Pregnant mother looking exhausted sitting near a pile of pink baby shower decorations

Surviving the pink tulle trap of modern girl baby showers

I was exactly twenty-eight weeks pregnant, sitting on the floor of my Chicago apartment, surrounded by three garbage bags of neon pink tulle. My mother-in-law had just left after proudly declaring my upcoming baby show would be a princess paradise....

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