What A Baby Chimpanzee Actually Taught Me About Human Parenting
It was three in the morning in the postpartum ward. I was bleeding through a mesh pad, staring at my newborn son in his plastic bassinet, waiting for the maternal instinct software to finish downloading. I thought it would just...
Forget The 2001 Myths: Keeping Your Baby Boy Alive And Thriving
I'm sitting on the nursery floor at three in the morning, holding my screaming infant, and staring at a hand-me-down parenting paperback my aunt insisted I read. It's a guide to raising boys, published right around the turn of the...
Why a 1980s baby boom cast makes more sense than modern apps
My mum casually mentioned last Tuesday that if I didn't start putting a pulverized rusk into the twins' nighttime milk, they would never sleep past 4 am and I'd be looking at stunted growth by their third birthday. The bloke...
The Late Night Truth About Your Grunting Newborn (And Why I Panicked)
It was exactly 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in mid-November, and I was wearing my husbandβs gray college sweatpantsβthe ones with the permanent, unidentifiable spit-up stain on the left knee that I absolutely refused to wash because doing laundry felt...
Navigating the Average Baby Weight at Birth: A Mom's Honest Guide
I was sitting in Dr. Sarahβs office with my firstborn, completely drenched in postpartum sweats, staring at that cold metal infant scale like it was a judge handing down a life sentence. The crinkly paper on the exam table was...
Raising An Asian Baby In Rural Texas Without Losing Your Damn Mind
I was standing in my kitchen staring at my oldestβwho's now five and a walking, talking cautionary tale about what happens when you give a toddler unchecked access to YouTubeβwhen he was just a screaming newborn. My own mother was...
Surviving the Heartbreak Nobody Wants to Talk About
Don't bring a grieving mother a tuna casserole and tell her that God just needed another angel. I was standing in my kitchen, wearing the same stained sweatpants Iβd had on for three days, holding a lukewarm Pyrex dish while...
The Nightly Bubble Bath Lie and Finding Safe Soap for Babies
I was standing in the middle of a Target aisle at eight o'clock at night with spit-up down my back, staring blankly at a giant wall of purple, lavender-scented bottles promising me the world. My firstborn was three months old,...
How to Choose Cute Baby Girl Names Without Losing Your Mind
We're sitting in the parking lot of a Texas Roadhouse in the dead of August. I'm 38 weeks pregnant, sweating through a maternity shirt I bought on clearance, and absolutely sobbing into a to-go container of buttered rolls. Why? Because...