Magazine
Dear Past Me: The Real Truth About That Local Baby Boutique
Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago. I'm writing this to you because I know exactly where you're standing right now. You're in the middle of the fluorescent-lit hellscape of a massive big-box store's baby section, and you're sweating profusely...
How to Choose a Baby Bottle Warmer Without Losing Your Mind
I distinctly remember standing in my kitchen at 3:14 AM with my oldest kid screaming his lungs out in the other room. I was staring bleary-eyed at a frozen bag of breastmilk, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, and...
My 2 AM Fight About the Baby Boomer Age Range and Safe Sleep
The radiator in our Chicago apartment was hissing that dry, rhythmic sound it only makes in late January. It was two in the morning. I was standing in the doorway of the nursery, rubbing my eyes, watching my mother try...
Surviving The Baby Boomer Age With A Toddler In Your House
I brought my aging parents to live with us in Chicago last winter. Don't attempt to merge decades of generational trauma and a teething toddler by just smiling and pretending you've unlimited emotional bandwidth. It was a Tuesday when I...
Why Watching Baby Boom As A Parent Feels Like A Personal Attack
Itβs 10:43 PM on a Tuesday, and I'm sitting on the left side of my couch wearing college sweatpants that have a literal hole in the knee and a maternity bra that I havenβt actually needed for two years but...
How to Debug the Exact Baby Blue Color Code for Your Nursery
Three different people gave me completely conflicting advice while I was standing in an empty room holding a dry paint roller. My mother-in-law called to insist I needed to find something she referred to as "stork blue" because it supposedly...
The Truth About That Heirloom Crochet Baby Blanket
I was thirty-seven weeks pregnant with my oldest, sweating completely through a gray maternity tank top in the middle of a Texas July, when my grandmother proudly pulled a massive, neon-yellow afghan out of a plastic grocery bag. It had...
The Honest Dad's Guide to Surviving the Baby Beach
At exactly 8:14 AM last Tuesday, I found myself standing at the edge of the dunes in West Sussex, carrying three oversized tote bags, a cooler, a parasol, and two shrieking two-year-old girls who had just discovered that wind exists....
Debugging Bath Time: My Quest for a Safe Baby Bathtub
Iβm standing over our stainless steel kitchen sink, my heart rate clocking 130 BPM on my smartwatch, holding what can only be described as a furiously squirming, soap-covered water balloon. My wife Sarah is standing exactly two feet to my...