Magazine

A baby dog looking confused at a Kianao wooden play gym

The Brutal Reality of Mixing Tiny Puppies and Newborn Twins

I'm standing in our narrow London hallway, holding a slightly stiff hospital blanket that smells intensely of NHS-grade floor cleaner and sheer panic. Page 47 of a highly-rated parenting manual told me I should present this artifact to our terrier...

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Mother holding her sleeping infant in a dimly lit nursery room

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...

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A tired father carrying twin girls in a park comparing their behavior to a wild primate

What a Wild Baby Chimp Taught Me About Raising Twin Toddlers

I'm currently lying flat on the rug in our London living room, staring at a patch of ceiling that desperately needs painting, while someone repeatedly hits my left shin with a plastic spatula. Twin A (Isla) is shrieking because her...

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Toddler pulling up to stand while wearing soft flexible minimalist baby shoes

Why buying your first baby boy shoes is a complete medical scam

Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently standing in a boutique in the West Loop holding a pair of miniature high-top sneakers that cost more than your favorite nursing scrubs. You're tracing the stiff leather with your thumb and...

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A messy living room with a toddler holding a crayon drawing of a pink water lizard

The Messy, Honest Truth About Getting a Baby Axolotl

It was 7:00 AM on a Tuesday, and I was standing in my kitchen trying to pour coffee while my four-year-old oldest son shoved a piece of construction paper directly into my line of sight. On it was a crude...

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Messy living room with bright plastic infant items mixed with wooden blocks

The Plastic Avalanche: A Real Parent's Guide to Better Play

The singing plastic dog went off at exactly 3:14 AM. I know the exact time because the microwave clock was glaring at me in the dark kitchen where I was standing in a milk-stained gray nursing tank, furiously shaking a...

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Exhausted dad looking at baby monitor stats on a tablet in a dark nursery.

Raising a Black baby: A glitch report to my past self

It's 3:14 AM. I'm currently staring at the humidity sensor output for the nursery, trying to correlate a 4% drop in ambient moisture with why our son has been awake since one in the morning. I'm writing this to you,...

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A bewildered dad looking at a silicone baby animal teether in a nursery

The Science of Baby Animals (And Why I Can't Bring A Hamster Home)

I was standing in Petco at 4:15 PM on a Tuesday, staring blankly into a terrarium of baby bearded dragons, genuinely calculating if acquiring a tiny reptile would solve my 11-month-old’s mid-afternoon fussiness. In my sleep-deprived logic, she liked the...

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Chubby baby sitting on an organic cotton playmat grabbing a wooden teether.

The Truth About Baby Fat and When to Actually Worry

I was standing in the checkout line at HEB last Tuesday, balancing a pack of diapers on my hip and praying my debit card wouldn't decline, when the cashier zeroed in on my youngest. "Oh my goodness, look at those...

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