Why we threw out the traditional gendered baby name playbook
I was thirty-two weeks pregnant, sitting at the kitchen island at three in the morning, aggressively pointing out cells in a Google Sheet. My husband was asleep. The spreadsheet was simply titled The Child. Row forty-seven was the name Emerson....
Exactly When Does Baby Acne Go Away? A Tired Parent's Guide
I was sitting cross-legged on our hideous beige living room rug at 2:14 PM on a Tuesday, wearing maternity sweatpants that hadn't seen the inside of a washing machine since my water broke. Leo was exactly three weeks old and...
When do babies start clapping: a letter to my panicked past self
Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the jute rug in the living room. Your knees hurt. You have sung some variation of pat-a-cake forty-seven times today. Your coffee is cold and your eight-month-old is staring at...
The Brutal Truth About Baby Allergy Medicine and Sniffles
I was standing under the humming fluorescent lights of a Walgreens at three in the morning with a rashy, congested toddler on my hip when I realized the biggest myth we all swallow about the pharmacy aisle. You know the...
The Weird Baby Oil Diddy Drama Taught Me A Vital Skincare Lesson
I was elbow-deep in the bathtub trying to scrub a week-old, half-peeled Paw Patrol temporary tattoo off my oldest son's shoulder blade when my phone buzzed with the tenth internet joke of the morning. Between packing up fifteen monogrammed burlap...
The Brutal Truth About Baby Guinea Pigs Nobody Tells Parents
The teenager behind the counter at the pet store was casually explaining to a mother that if she touched her new baby guinea pig, the mother pig would smell human on the baby and eat it. I had to physically...
How a Baby Horse Name Crashed My Naming Spreadsheet
I was staring at row 842 of my master Google Sheet when the system finally broke down. Column A contained the potential name. Column B tracked the syllable count. Column C was tied to a Python script I wrote to...
Notes to myself six months ago on surviving the baby M phase
It's 3:14 in the morning and you're staring at the glow of the humidifier like it holds the answers to the universe. Outside, the Chicago wind is rattling the bedroom window, but inside, all you can hear is the frantic,...
The Honest Truth About Finding A Safe Newborn Teething Ring
When my oldest started gnawing his own fists off at four months, the unsolicited advice came flying at me faster than I could dodge it. My mom told me to just rub a little whiskey on his gums, my sweet...