The Truth About Creating a Baby Map: Inside the Womb and Out
Listen, thirty-four weeks pregnant, I was sitting on my Chicago apartment's bathroom tiles at two in the morning with a purple washable marker, poking my own abdomen. The snow was coming down hard outside, and my late-night search history was...
Why I Threw Out Most Of Our Learning Toys And What Actually Survived
It was exactly 4:13 AM on a random Tuesday in November, and I was wearing my husband Daveβs oversized college sweatshirt which had a highly questionable yogurt stain on the left shoulder. I was holding a lukewarm mug of yesterday's...
The 3 AM Plastic Meltdown That Redefined Babys Spielzeug For Me
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing my husbandβs inexplicably stained college sweatpants. Leo, who was eight months old at the time and deep into a sleep regression that made me question all my life choices,...
The Messy Truth About Ditching the Plastic Jungle for a Wooden Play...
I was sitting on the floor of my living room at two in the morning, nursing my oldest son, Beau, while a plastic mechanical toucan aggressively flashed red and blue strobe lights into my sleep-deprived retinas. The toy was attached...
My 3 AM Panic Over a Constipated Baby (And What Actually Works)
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was sitting on the edge of my bathtub wearing my husband Gregβs oversized Syracuse Lacrosse t-shirt, which had a suspicious spit-up stain on the shoulder that I had just decided to...
The Truth About Those Perfect Baby Playing Quotes I Used To Hate
It was exactly 3:14 AM. I know this because the glowing green numbers on our cheap digital alarm clock were basically burning holes into my sleep-deprived retinas. I was sitting in the grey nursing glider we bought off Craigslistβthe one...
The absolute chaos of the home baby ball pit (and why we caved)
"Get them a tub of plastic spheres," my mother-in-law announced over Sunday roast, waving her fork for emphasis, "it tires them out." "Donβt you dare," warned Clara from my NCT group a week later, eyes wide over her flat white,...
The real science behind the dancing baby gif and infant motor skills
I spent a ridiculous amount of time last Tuesday trying to capture the perfect dancing baby gif for my family's group chat. I propped my nine-month-old against the sofa, blasted some nineties club track, and hovered with my phone waiting...
Why Most "Educational" Toys Are Just Overpriced Plastic
I'm currently staring down a plastic monstrosity that speaks three languages, flashes like a discount Vegas casino, and cost my mother-in-law forty-five dollars. It has a giant sticker on the box screaming that it'll teach my baby geometry, and let...