Magazine

A tired mom holding a crying infant surrounded by scattered baby clothes and wooden toys on a living room floor.

Bringing Babys Home: Surviving The First Year Without Losing It

The digital clock on the microwave read 3:14 AM, and I was sitting cross-legged on the cold bathroom tile, desperately trying to steam the congestion out of my oldest son, Jackson. He was screaming like I was personally torturing him,...

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Stressed mom holding a lukewarm coffee cup while pushing a stroller through a park

How To Survive An Actual Baby's Day Out Without The Slapstick

It was precisely 10:14 AM on a Tuesday in late October, and I was standing in the parking lot of a suburban Target wearing gray yoga pants that had a highly suspicious yellow stain near the left knee, crying into...

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A mom holding a baby surrounded by soft wooden toys on a playmat

Dear Me: Put Down the Flashcards and Let Them Be a Baby Tiger

I'm standing barefoot on a rogue plastic dinosaur, staring at a laminated stack of mandarin flashcards I bought on the internet at two in the morning, while my three-year-old is using a half-eaten waffle to paint maple syrup across my...

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Tired mom bouncing a crying newborn baby in a dark nursery at night

Hush Little Baby: A Letter to Exhausted Me About 3 AM Survival

Dear Jess from six months ago, You're currently standing in the hallway at 3:14 AM wearing a nursing bra that smells suspiciously like sour milk. You're bouncing rhythmically, staring at a chip in the baseboard, and desperately whispering the hush...

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Tired mom drinking coffee next to a large baby swing in a messy living room

The Ingenuity Baby Swing Sleep Myth That Totally Broke My Heart

It was 3:14 AM on a random Tuesday in August, and I was sitting on my incredibly stained living room rug wearing a nursing bra that smelled entirely like sour milk and desperation. Leo was four weeks old. He was...

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Naomi Osaka holding her infant daughter on a tennis court

The Naomi Osaka Baby Era and the Absolute Reality of Motherhood

I was sitting in the dark at three in the morning with a breast pump attached to my chest sounding like a dying asthmatic tractor. My phone screen was the only light in the room, and I was reading an...

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A tired mom wearing a baby in a floral pattern soft structured carrier.

My Messy Journey With the Tula Carrier (And Why I Kept It)

It was a hundred and two degrees in July, right in the middle of a rural Texas Target parking lot, and my arms were bent backward like a stale pretzel. I was leaning heavily against the side of my minivan,...

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Stressed mom sitting on the living room rug looking at a baby percentile calculator on her phone

Dear Past Me: Please Put Down That Baby Percentile Calculator

Dear Jess from six months ago, You're currently sitting on the faded living room rug with a floppy yellow sewing tape measure in one hand and your phone in the other, furiously typing slightly inaccurate measurements into a baby percentile...

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Mother sitting on a park bench watching her toddler climb a wooden structure.

Watching my kid fall off the playground cured my helicopter anxiety

The wind coming off Lake Michigan was aggressive enough to make my eyes water, but I couldn't blink. My two-year-old was fifteen feet up a rope climbing pyramid at Maggie Daley Park. His left foot was wedged between two cables....

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