What to wear to a baby shower when nothing fits (a survival guide)
Sarah was wedged inside a floral maternity dress that had, seemingly overnight, transformed from breezy summer elegance into a highly restrictive sausage casing. It was mid-July, she was thirty-two weeks pregnant with the twins, and our own baby shower was...
The brutal, messy truth about when your baby will finally sit up
I was sitting cross-legged on my living room rug, trapped in a fortress of couch cushions. My son, six months old and entirely unbothered by gravity, had just executed his fortieth faceplant of the morning. His grandmother was on FaceTime,...
The Great Melanin Firmware Update: A Dad's Guide to Eye Color
Hey Marcus from six months ago. You're currently standing by the window in our perpetually gray Portland living room, angling a five-month-old infant toward the meager sunlight, trying to determine if her irises are hex code #4B5320 (Army Green) or...
A 3 AM Deep Dive Into Sleep Coaches and 19th-Century Babies
The thermostat on the baby monitor says exactly 69.8 degrees, which is supposedly the good thermal threshold for an 11-month-old human, yet my daughter is currently thrashing against my chest like a malfunctioning Roomba. It's 2:14 AM. We're in the...
Stop Buying Tiny Suits: The Truth About Dressing Baby Boys
I'm currently staring at a giant plastic tote bin in my garage, holding a pair of stiff, mustard-yellow baby corduroy overalls that still have the tags on them. Next to them is a tiny plaid button-down shirt that feels suspiciously...
The Search for the Best Humidifier for Baby (Without the Mold)
My mother-in-law handed me a vintage 1990s vaporizer and told me to boil eucalyptus oil in the nursery. Three hours later, the guy at Home Depot practically cornered me in the plumbing aisle to explain why ultrasonic machines are the...
My Search for the Best Baby Books (A Warning to Past Marcus)
Dear Marcus from exactly 182 days ago: I'm looking directly at the memory of you slicing open an Amazon box on the kitchen island at 2:14 AM. It contains six different hardcovers claiming to hold the ultimate algorithm for newborn...
Dear Past Marcus: Stop Googling the baby steps anime at 3 AM
Dear Past Marcus, It's currently 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and you're staring at your phone in the dark while the baby (who's now 11 months old, by the wayβspoiler alert, we survive the sleep regression) does that weird dolphin-clicking...
Before you get quail chicks for the kids, read this
At 3:14 am on a Tuesday, I found myself dropping glass marbles into a milk bottle lid while two frantic, thumb-sized birds watched me with what I can only describe as big suspicion. In the next room, my two-year-old twin...