Magazine
Dear Past Marcus: A Debugging Guide to Dressing Your Infant
Dear Marcus of exactly six months ago: I can see you right now. You're standing over the changing table at 3:17 AM in our freezing Portland apartment, sweating profusely while holding a squirming, screaming five-month-old, trying to figure out how...
Dear past me: Burn the denim and other late night revelations
You're currently staring at a mustard-colored stain that has breached the diaper perimeter and is rapidly advancing toward his armpits. It's 3:14 AM. You're trying to unfasten a tiny, rigid denim overall set with six microscopic metal buttons while your...
Baby Sunscreen: The Messy Truth About Mineral Paste Deployment
For the first six months of my daughter's life, I operated under the delusion that a standard Portland overcast day was basically nature's SPF. I figured the thick gray blanket of clouds hanging over the city was a built-in forcefield...
The Complete Dad Guide to Finding a Good Feeding Bottle
I was standing in our dimly lit kitchen at 2:14 AM, holding six separate, dripping plastic components of a single infant vessel, when I accidentally dropped a tiny silicone vent disc down the garbage disposal. The baby was screaming in...
The truth about girls clothing from a tired pediatric nurse
My mother told me I needed to dress my daughter in pure silk to protect her aura from negative energy. The veteran charge nurse on my pediatric floor said to put her in whatever was cheapest at the discount store...
The ugly truth about girls pants and those morning meltdowns
It's 7:14 AM on a Tuesday. I'm sitting on the nursery rug, sweating through my t-shirt, trying to force a stiff, sequined denim leg onto a thrashing two-year-old. She's screaming like I'm taking a bone saw to her shin. I...
Why toddler boy winter legwear is a psychological battleground
My mother-in-law cornered me in the kitchen last Thanksgiving to announce that if I didn't cover my son's knees, the winter draft would settle into his joints and cause permanent arthritis. Thirty minutes later at the park, a fellow mom...
The Truth About That Heirloom Crochet Blanket Pattern
It was, like, 3 AM on a Tuesday in 2017 and I was sitting on my living room rug wearing my husbandβs stained gray college sweatpants, completely tangled in mint green yarn. I was seven months pregnant with Maya and...
The ugly truth about buying a toddler stroller
I was stuck halfway across the intersection of Belmont and Clark when the right front wheel of my wildly expensive travel system simply gave up. It didn't detach or shatter. It just locked completely sideways, grinding against the salty Chicago...