Magazine

Yesterday at 5:14 AM, I staggered into the living room to grab a burp cloth and stepped directly onto a plastic cow that immediately began mooing "Old MacDonald" in a haunting, battery-depleted baritone. My 11-month-old daughter, sitting in her playpen,...

There I was, barefoot in my own living room at 6:30 in the morning, stepping squarely on a tiny plastic firefighter hat that came with some massive, overpriced fire truck my oldest got for his third birthday. I’m just gonna...

Dear Tom from exactly six months ago, You're currently standing in the middle of aisle four of a massive, warehouse-style toy store just off the M25, sweating profusely into your supposedly breathable cotton t-shirt while the twins double-team a meltdown...

When my son was about four days old, my mother-in-law bought us a plastic command center that flashed strobe lights and yelled the alphabet in a robotic British accent. "He needs cognitive stimulation," she told me with absolute certainty. The...

I walked into my mother-in-law's house last Thanksgiving and caught her trying to wedge my four-month-old into a plastic rolling walker that looked like a relic from 1996. I pulled him out of that dusty death trap so fast I...