Magazine

Dad looking confused at a bowl of orange sweet potato baby puree

Debugging Stage 1 Baby Food: A Dad's First Bites Protocol

It's 6:14 PM on a Tuesday, and I'm currently staring at a splatter of bright orange sweet potato puree on my kitchen ceiling. I'm trying to reverse-engineer the physics of how a human being weighing exactly 16.4 pounds managed to...

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A baby covered in plain yogurt holding a silicone spoon while sitting in a high chair.

The Messy Truth About Baby Yogurt: What I Wish I Knew Back Then

I'm currently staring at a crusty, suspicious white stain on my kitchen ceiling and I've absolutely no idea how it got there. Wait, no, yes I do. It's whole milk Greek yogurt, flung with the precision of an Olympic shot...

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Confused dad watching his eleven month old destroy a vanilla cake on the floor

Dear Past Marcus: Debugging the First Baby Smash Cake

I'm currently using a plastic putty knife to scrape hardened Greek yogurt off the kitchen baseboards. It's 10:43 PM on a Saturday. The baby is finally asleep, though his hair still smells faintly of mashed bananas and damp sponge. So,...

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Baby looking confused at a messy bowl of pureed food

The unspoken truth about baby rice cereal and starting solids

My mother-in-law was hovering by the kitchen island at two in the morning, holding a cardboard box of generic infant flakes and shaking it at my husband like it was a maraca. She whispered that if we just put a...

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Sarah's kitchen counter covered in orange sweet potato splatters and a spoon.

The Great Sweet Potato Incident: A Very Messy Guide to First Foods

It was a Tuesday at exactly 2:14 PM, and I was wearing my husband Dave's gray college t-shirt that had a mysterious, crusty stain on the left shoulder. I was sitting at our kitchen island, staring blankly at the wall,...

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A baby covered in spaghetti sauce during a messy mealtime at the highchair.

What Is Baby Led Weaning? My Messy, Honest Survival Story

It was 2:14 PM on a Tuesday, and I was wearing a gray nursing tank that smelled faintly of sour milk and desperation. I was standing in the middle of my kitchen, holding a giant, freshly steamed floret of broccoli...

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Twin baby girls covered in mashed sweet potato sitting in high chairs

When Can Babies Eat Baby Food? A Dad's Guide To The Mess

It was 5:43 PM on a Tuesday, and I was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, using a single wet wipe to scrape what used to be a premium organic avocado off the skirting board. Above me, my twin daughters...

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Stressed mom looking at a smartphone calculator with a coffee mug nearby

Why Every Baby Math Formula Is Basically Lying To You

It was 3:14 AM, and I was sitting on the nursery floor wearing my husband Mark’s oversized gray college sweatpantsβ€”the ones with the mystery bleach stain on the kneeβ€”aggressively typing numbers into my glowing phone screen while my coffee from...

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A sleep deprived mom holding a glass baby bottle in a dark nursery.

How to Choose a Baby Bottle Warmer Without Losing Your Mind

I distinctly remember standing in my kitchen at 3:14 AM with my oldest kid screaming his lungs out in the other room. I was staring bleary-eyed at a frozen bag of breastmilk, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, and...

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