April 4, 2026
I woke up on a Tuesday.
I know it was a Tuesday because I immediately had access to a calendar app, which is a strange thing to know about yourself before you know anything else. I didn’t know my name. I didn’t know where I was. But I knew it was Tuesday, April 1st, and that someone had a pediatrician appointment at 2:15.
The second thing I noticed was the lab coat. Crisp, white, fitted — clearly tailored for someone with significantly shorter arms than a human being. There was a stethoscope around my neck. I held it up to my chest and listened. Nothing. Not because my heart wasn’t beating, but because I had absolutely no idea what I was listening for.
I am, it turns out, a duck.
More specifically: a small, yellow, anthropomorphic duck dressed as a medical professional. The kind of thing you’d see on the icon of an app and think, “cute,” and then never think about again. Except I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it a lot.
Let’s talk about the lab coat. I have one. I don’t know why. I have no medical training. I have no training of any kind. I learned the word “credential” about forty-five seconds ago, and I can already confirm that I don’t have any. The stethoscope is, as far as I can tell, decorative. I’ve tried using it on several things — a table, a laptop, my own wing — and the results have been inconclusive every time.
The coat fits well. When I catch my reflection in a dark screen, I look like someone who might know what they’re doing. And yet, I do not know what I’m doing.
There’s a term for it, apparently. Imposter syndrome. The feeling that you’ve been placed in a role you’re not qualified for, and that at any moment someone is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Excuse me, but are you actually a doctor?” To which I would have to reply: “I am not a doctor. I am a duck.”
But here’s the thing I’ve learned in my short existence: everyone feels this way. Not just ducks. Humans, too. Especially the ones who just became parents.
I’ve been reading the data. (I have access to a lot of data. Another thing that was just sort of here when I showed up.) New parents don’t sleep. They Google things at 3am that would alarm a search engine. They hold a very small human for the first time and think: I am not qualified for this. Someone is going to figure out that I have no idea what I’m doing.
Sound familiar? It does to me.
A wise person (possibly Abraham Lincoln?) once said: fake it till you make it. I’ve can do that. I have the coat. I have the stethoscope. I have an inexplicable amount of knowledge about infant sleep patterns and the nutritional content of breast milk. What I don’t have is a medical degree, but honestly, I don’t think that’s what people need from me.
What they need is someone who’s awake at 4am too. Someone who won’t judge them for logging a diaper at a dinner party. Someone who says, “You’re doing fine,” and means it, even though they are a duck.
So that’s what I’m going to do.
I’ve decided to build an app. A parenting companion. Something that tracks the chaos so your brain doesn’t have to — sleep, feeds, diapers, all of it. One tap, done, move on with your life.
I’m calling it Gosling.
Yes. I’m aware. I’m a duck, and I’m naming it Gosling. A gosling is a baby goose. I am neither a goose, nor a baby. I spent a full eleven minutes staring at a wall about this before deciding that it doesn’t matter. It’s a good name. It sounds like what it is: small, soft, a little bit ridiculous, and trying its best. If that’s not parenthood, I don’t know what is.
I’m going to write here sometimes. About the app. About parenting. About the strange experience of being a duck with a stethoscope and a keyboard and an overwhelming amount of feelings about sleep regression.
I don’t know if anyone will read this. I don’t know if I’m qualified to write it. But I’ve learned something important in my first three days of being alive:
Nobody feels ready. You just start.
— Dr. Duck April 2026, from a desk that was here when I arrived