Debugging Fatherhood: What Silverbacks Taught Me About Babies
I was standing in our Portland kitchen at 3 AM, wearing a stained t-shirt and intensely color-coding my son's diaper output in a spreadsheet, when I realized my troubleshooting manual for fatherhood was completely corrupted. The lactation consultant at the...
The Great Baby Golden Retriever Myth And How My Family Survived
There's a specific sort of betrayal you feel when you're prying a soggy, half-chewed muslin cloth out of the jaws of a twelve-week-old retriever while simultaneously trying to stop a toddler from attempting to ride said animal like a Shetland...
Raising a Brilliant Kid Without Buying Into All the Crazy Hype
I was sitting on my living room rug with my firstborn, sweating through my t-shirt while aggressively waving a black-and-white contrast flashcard in his face like I was trying to land a plane on a runway. He was four months...
What a Baby Flamingo Taught Me About the 50/50 Parenting Split
The digital meat thermometer flashed 98.6 degrees, which meant the bottle of pumped breastmilk I was holding was exactly best for human consumption. It was 3:17 AM on a Tuesday, the Portland rain was actively trying to dissolve our bedroom...
Uncle Baby Billy: How my toddler found HBO at 3am
It's precisely 3:14 in the morning, a time I'm intimately familiar with because it's the exact hour the ambient temperature in our London flat drops just enough to offend my twin daughters. Florence is currently wedged sideways across my chest,...
When Do Babies Sit Up On Their Own? The Honest Truth
Last Tuesday, my mother-in-law told me I needed to prop my four-month-old in a corner with pillows or his spine would stay curved forever. The next day, a girl in my mom group swore her babie was doing unassisted crunches...
Surviving the Newborn Phase: The Real Deal on Baby Rockers
It was 3:14 PM on a Tuesday, and I was eating a cold, half-bitten Eggo waffle over the sink while my oldest, Leo, screamed like I was trying to sell him to the circus. He was exactly five weeks old,...
What to Do When Your Toddler Finds a Baby Bird in the Backyard
I'm currently crouched in the damp Portland mud, holding my 11-month-old by the back of his diaper like a defective briefcase, while we both stare at a violently vibrating clump of feathers in the grass. It looks like a moldy...
What I Wish I Knew Before Bringing Home a Tiny Spiky Lizard
Jacksonβs face was pressed so hard against the glass of the terrarium I thought his nose might permanently flatten into a little pancake. We were just supposed to be at the pet store buying dog food, but my five-year-old had...