Magazine

A tired dad holding a spoon in a dark kitchen, questioning his life choices.

That 3am cough, the sticky spoon, and the great honey panic

It was 3:14 in the morning, rain was battering the living room windows of our London flat, and Twin A was barking like a chain-smoking seal. Twin B, not to be outdone by her sister's theatrics, had started a sort...

Read more

A mother watching her teething baby play with wooden animal toys.

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...

Read more

A tired dad staring at a tiny frosted glass bottle of baby cologne

A letter to myself about the absolute madness of baby cologne

Dear Tom of Six Months Ago, You're currently standing in the hallway of the semi-detached in Balham, holding a tiny, frosted glass bottle gifted by your remarkably chic European mother-in-law. You're staring at the words "Eau de Senteur" printed in...

Read more

A toddler looking at a baby capybara in a zoo enclosure

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...

Read more

Priya staring at a pile of pureed sweet potatoes in tiny plastic cups

Dear Priya: The messy truth about that baby bullet blender

Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently standing in the kitchen at eleven at night, staring at a massive pile of organic sweet potatoes. You just bought a specialized baby bullet blender, and you're entirely convinced you're going to...

Read more

Close-up of organic bamboo baby blanket next to a painted nursery wall showing the exact baby blue hex shade.

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...

Read more

A bewildered dad awkwardly testing bath water temperature with his elbow.

Debugging Bath Time: My Quest for a Safe Baby Bathtub

I’m 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...

Read more

A stressed dad holding a tray of oven baked baby back ribs while an infant watches

Debugging Dinner: A Dad's Guide to Oven-Baked Baby Back Ribs

My dad told me that if I didn't cook them over hickory wood on a custom offset charcoal smoker, I was committing a culinary felony. My neighbor Dave leaned over the fence on Tuesday and insisted the only way to...

Read more

A bewildered dad trying to figure out why his baby is making weird hand gestures.

How Baby ASL Fixed Our 11-Month-Old's Communication Bugs

At 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, I was holding a perfectly warmed, 98.6-degree bottle of formula out like a peace offering, while my eleven-month-old son shrieked like a dial-up modem failing to connect. I tried the bottle again. He slapped...

Read more