The brutally honest guide to naming a boy
I was thirty-four weeks pregnant, sitting in the hospital cafeteria with a lukewarm grilled cheese, getting bombarded via text. My mother-in-law insisted we needed something that commanded respect in a boardroom, preferably something multi-syllabic and deeply traditional. The charge nurse...
The Unfiltered Reality of Welcoming Baby Number Three
I was sweating through my favorite vintage band shirt in the middle of an August afternoon, staring at the back seat of my SUV with a tape measure in one hand and a half-eaten string cheese in the other. I...
Writing baby shower wishes that will not make parents roll their eyes
I'm sitting cross-legged on my faded Chicago apartment rug right now. My toddler is methodically dismantling a cardboard box in the corner, looking for a stale Cheerio I know he dropped three days ago. I'm holding a stack of heavy...
My Brutally Honest Guide To Surviving The Baby Shower Cake Drama
I was thirty-three weeks pregnant with Maya, wearing a navy blue floral maternity wrap dress from Target that was actively cutting off the circulation to my ribs. It was 2:15 PM on a sweltering Sunday in July, I was sweating...
Screen Time Reality: A Mom's Take On The Little Baby Bum Craze
When my oldest was born, my mom flat-out told me that looking at a screen before age two would permanently short-circuit his brain. My pediatrician shrugged at our six-month checkup and said fifteen minutes of a cartoon so I could...
Navigating infant developmental timelines without losing your mind
We were sitting around a cramped dining table in Rogers Park when the unsolicited advice started rolling in. My mother-in-law casually mentioned that my husband was walking independently at nine months, heavily implying my ten-month-old was somehow defective for still...
Confessions of a Clueless Runner: The Truth About Baby Joggers
I'm three miles deep into a caliche dirt road in rural Texas, sweat pooling in places I didn't know could sweat, pushing a thirty-dollar plastic umbrella stroller that sounds like a shopping cart with a square wheel. My oldest son,...
What Nobody Tells You About Choosing Baby Girl Names in 2025
I was standing in the middle of the H-E-B diaper aisle, eight months pregnant with my oldest, sobbing uncontrollably next to the butt paste because I suddenly realized the beautiful, vintage name we had spent six months choosing was going...
The 3 AM Eczema Meltdown That Changed How I Dress My Kids
It was 3:14 AM in a stuffy, overheated Airbnb in Zermatt, and I was wearing my husband Markβs oversized Ramones t-shirt that still smelled vaguely like airplane air and desperation. Maya was four months old, and she was screaming a...