Magazine

A disassembled toy doll next to a sink full of soapy water and a scrub brush

The ugly truth about that baby alive doll hiding in your playroom

I'm standing over my kitchen sink at eleven at night with a pair of surgical tweezers, trying to extract a solid black clump of fermented synthetic cherry mush from the plastic esophagus of a toy. This is not how I...

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Exhausted mom in stained sweatpants holding a baby with dry skin

Surviving The Ash Baby Look And Other Sweaty Newborn Disasters

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was staring at Leo under the harsh bathroom vanity light, wearing a nursing bra that smelled aggressively of sour milk and my husband Dave's oversized college sweatpants. Leo was three weeks...

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Frustrated dad trying to fold a massive baby stroller in the rain outside a coffee shop.

The V1.0 Stroller Bug: Why My First Hardware Purchase Failed

It's 43 degrees, pouring that specific sideways Portland rain, and I'm violently kicking the back left wheel of a $900 piece of baby gear while my wife Sarah watches from the passenger seat of our Honda Civic. This was my...

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Pregnant mother sitting on floor surrounded by baby shower gifts and neutral decor.

The Truth About Surviving Your Own Baby Shower

I was thirty-one weeks pregnant, sitting on my incredibly dusty apartment floor in Chicago, staring at a mountain of tissue paper while my mother-in-law asked why I hated color. She had wanted royal blue balloons everywhere. I had asked for...

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Tired mother sitting on nursery floor calculating budget with baby gear

Surviving the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps With Three Under Five

I was sitting on the nursery floor at 2:14 AM with my oldest, staring at a $400 emergency room bill for what turned out to be entirely normal teething pain, when I realized we were financially drowning. He was screaming,...

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A wooden baby guitar next to a vintage record player in a messy Chicago apartment

The Baby Beluga Musician Was Right About Everything All Along

The radiator in our Chicago apartment was making that rhythmic clicking sound it only makes at three in the morning. My toddler was executing a flawless, rigid back-arch scream, the kind that usually shows either a dropped pacifier or a...

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A dusty plastic storage bin filled with colorful 90s plush animal toys

The Beanie Baby Delusion: Why I Booted My Childhood Collection

I was standing ankle-deep in fiberglass insulation in my parents' attic last Thanksgiving, holding a massive, dust-caked Rubbermaid tub. Inside was what my 1998 brain calculated to be roughly $40,000 worth of brightly colored plush toys. I actually looked at...

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Dad holding a baby wearing a simple A-line dress

Buying schΓΆne kleider fΓΌr kinder: A dad's dress debugging

It was 7:14 AM on a Tuesday when the mobility crisis officially peaked. My eleven-month-old daughter, Maya, was stranded in the middle of our living room rug, her knees firmly pinned to the floor by an excessive layer of synthetic...

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Organic cotton baby clothes and practical gifts for a sustainable baby geschenkkorb

A Letter to Past Me: How to Build a Real baby geschenkkorb

Dear Sarah from last October, I know exactly where you're right now. You’re standing in the middle of the baby aisle at MΓΌller at 7:45 PM on a Tuesday. You’re wearing those black maternity leggings that you absolutely refuse to...

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