Why Your Teething Toddler Acts Like a Wild Baby Crocodile
"Bite him back," my mom told me over the phone last Tuesday while I sat on the kitchen floor and iced the fresh, purple teeth marks on my forearm. "That'll teach him right quick." Meanwhile, the crunchy preschool director had...
I Googled "Baby Chicks For Sale" And Now My Living Room Smells Like...
I'm currently staring at a 100-litre plastic storage tub in my hallway that's emitting a continuous, high-pitched sound, much like a smoke alarm that has somehow developed a needy personality. Inside this tub are four baby chicks. I blame Instagram,...
Why a baby capybara is a terrible pet for your toddler
My sister-in-law texted me a video of a giant rodent eating a popsicle in a plastic wading pool with a message saying we needed to buy one immediately. Two hours later, a mom at the neighborhood park asked me in...
The Great Bread Deception: Meeting A Baby Swan (And Surviving)
It's a crisp Tuesday morning at St James's Park, and an elderly gentleman in a tweed flat cap is hurling massive, doughy chunks of supermarket sliced white bread into the water. A fluffy grey cygnetβwhich I've just spent ten minutes...
What an Endangered Red Panda Taught Me About Parenting My Wild Child
The glow of my dual monitors was the only light in the living room while my eleven-month-old son performed what I can only describe as a sustained velociraptor screech from his playpen. It was 3:14 AM. I was supposed to...
The Truth About Raising Kids and a Baby Ferret
I was standing in my kitchen at 6:15 AM wearing Dave's oversized college hoodie that smells vaguely of sour milk, staring at my phone while my coffee dripped agonizingly slowly into the pot. I had stumbled down a TikTok rabbit...
My Complete Meltdown Over Petting Zoos and a Tiny Baby Donkey
It's exactly 10:14 AM on a Tuesday and I'm currently wedged between a rusty chain-link fence and a toddler who's vibrating with the kind of feral energy that usually precedes a trip to urgent care. My four-year-old, Leo, is violently...
The Science of Baby Animals (And Why I Can't Bring A Hamster Home)
I was standing in Petco at 4:15 PM on a Tuesday, staring blankly into a terrarium of baby bearded dragons, genuinely calculating if acquiring a tiny reptile would solve my 11-month-oldβs mid-afternoon fussiness. In my sleep-deprived logic, she liked the...
Why We Said No To Pet Turtles (And What To Teach Kids Instead)
We were at the Canton First Monday Trade Days, sweating through our shirts in the brutal Texas heat, when my oldest, Jackson, locked eyes with a plastic tub the size of a cereal bowl. Inside it was a tiny green...