The Utter Chaos of Trying to Dress a Very Small and Angry Newborn
Before the twins arrived, I was cornered at a family gathering and given three entirely contradictory pieces of advice regarding infant wardrobes. My mother-in-law insisted on knitted cardigans with actual, functional miniature buttons (a stylistic choice I'm still unpacking with...
Why high-end infant clothes usually aren't worth the headache
My oldest son, Wyatt, is the reason I've trust issues with zippers, snap crotches, and the entire children’s clothing industry. When he was about three months old, I got it in my head that we needed professional family photos out...
Debugging Baby Winter Temperature: A Dad’s Layering Logic
We were twenty-two minutes into the deployment phase of leaving the house, standing in our freezing Portland driveway, when the entire system crashed. I had just spent a quarter of an hour wrestling my 11-month-old son into a heavily insulated,...
The Absolute Biggest Myth About Finding a Good Baby Clothing Store
The greatest lie ever sold to expectant parents isn't that you'll eventually sleep again (though that's a massive, highly documented falsehood). It's the entire concept of the baby clothing store. Before the twins arrived, I had this hallucination of wandering...
The Great Blowout Disaster: What I Learned About Baby Clothes
I was standing in the glow of a turtle-shaped nightlight at 3:14 AM, holding a screaming Jackson at arm’s length like he was a ticking bomb made entirely of mustard-colored liquid. He was exactly four weeks old. The blowout had...
Navigating the Chaos of Buying Tiny Outfits for Premature Babies
My mom told me they didn't even make garments that small back in the day and to just wrap her in a receiving blanket until she chunked up. The NICU nurse told me to immediately send my husband out to...
Real Talk About Baby Clothes for Girls (And What Actually Works)
I'm currently staring at a photo of my oldest daughter from four years ago, and y'all, I need to issue a public apology to this child. She is exactly three weeks old in the picture, screaming her tiny, bald head...