3AM Screaming, K-Pop Fixes, And Why Babies Cry
"Leave them, it exercises their lungs," my mother-in-law declared over Sunday roast, waving a forkful of parsnip in the general direction of the nursery. "If you don't respond within thirty seconds, they'll develop crippling attachment trauma," our NHS health visitor...
The Uncanny Valley of the CGI Baby in Squid Game
There's a massive misconception floating around the parenting subreddits right now. People seem to think the horrifyingly fake infant in that Korean dystopian show was just a product of lazy budgeting. They assume some producer looked at an Excel sheet,...
Why I Quit Natural Bug Spray for Babies (And What Actually Works)
I was standing on my back porch in East Texas last July, holding a twenty-eight dollar glass bottle of "artisan woodland mist" while a mosquito the size of a Buick casually drank from my oldest kid's leg. Bless my first-time-mom...
That Terrifying BRUE Baby Glitch: What I Wish We Hadn't Done
Whatever you do, please don't pick up your kid and shake them like a defective Wi-Fi router when they suddenly go completely limp, which is exactly the panicked instinct I had to fight back at 2:14 AM last Tuesday. My...
Finding the Best Baby Gates Before Your Children Learn to Fly
At exactly 4:12 PM on a rainy Tuesday, I watched my daughter, who until that morning had possessed the mobility of a sack of King Edward potatoes, execute a perfect commando crawl across the living room and attempt to eat...
The Hard Truth About Beanie Babies Worth: A Letter to Past Me
Dear Jess of six months ago. Right now, you're standing in the gravel driveway in your pajama pants, squinting in the Texas sun, watching your mom's Honda CR-V idle while she wrestles three massive, dust-caked Rubbermaid tubs out of the...
The Strange Logic of Beanie Babies Birthdays & Safe Sleep
It was exactly 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was standing in the pale, unforgiving light of the open refrigerator, holding a slightly dusty, bright pink plush platypus inside a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. My 11-month-old was finally asleep after...
The absurdly high stakes of keeping your bassinet baby alive
Before we even brought the twins home from the hospital, three different people gave me three mutually exclusive pieces of advice about where they should sleep. My mother-in-law insisted I needed to line their little bedside cribs with rolled-up cashmere...
The Great Midnight Laundry Crash: Blankets and Baby Thermodynamics
I'm standing in our dimly lit basement laundry room at 2:14 AM, holding what used to be a piece of luxury textile, and it currently looks like a severely depressed, matted muppet. My wife is standing in the doorway, her...