A Letter to Past Me About The Baby Boy Cast (And Pee Fountains)
Hey man. It's you from six months in the future. You're currently sitting in room 3 at the pediatric orthopedist in downtown Portland, sweating straight through your flannel shirt, watching a technician wrap your five-month-old's lower half in what looks...
Troubleshooting the Baby Boo Phase Without Losing Your Mind
I was holding exactly 14.5 ounces of lukewarm formula in one hand and a screaming, rash-covered 11-month-old in the other when my mother-in-law casually suggested I just rub some whiskey on his gums. The biggest myth about this whole parenting...
What No One Tells You About Your Newborn's Literal Baby Face
It was 2016, and I was sitting on my incredibly disgusting beige couch at 3 AM. I was seven months pregnant with Maya, wearing a pair of maternity leggings that had a questionable hole in the crotch, and I was...
Troubleshooting Baby Eczema: A First-Time Dad's Bug-Fixing Guide
I was sitting at our kitchen island at 2:14 AM, staring blankly at a massive Excel spreadsheet I had built to track every single thing my wife had eaten over the past 72 hours, alongside every spoonful of pureed sweet...
A letter to myself about thrush in babies and the white spots
You're sitting on the edge of the glider at 3 a.m. with your phone flashlight pointed into a sleeping mouth. You're trying to pry his tiny jaw open without waking him, which is as impossible as it sounds. His lips...
What no one tells you about bringing a jaundice baby home
My mother-in-law told me to put him in the living room window like a houseplant. The hospital lactation consultant told me to feed him until my nipples literally fell off. My deeply sleep-deprived husband downloaded three different tracking apps, poking...
Debugging the Infant Wash Cycle: A Letter to My Clueless Past Self
You're currently holding a screaming, soapy five-month-old over a stainless steel kitchen sink while the water temperature wildly fluctuates between Arctic runoff and molten lava, and you're terrified. I know this because I'm you, writing from six months in the...
Surviving The Ash Baby Look And Other Sweaty Newborn Disasters
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was staring at Leo under the harsh bathroom vanity light, wearing a nursing bra that smelled aggressively of sour milk and my husband Dave's oversized college sweatpants. Leo was three weeks...
The Terrifying, Beautiful Truth About Having a Rainbow Baby
I was wearing this absolutely hideous mustard-yellow maternity sweater that I hated but wore anyway because it was clean, and I was squeezing my husbandβs hand so hard in the ultrasound room that his knuckles were actually turning white. It...