Leo decided, with all the gravity a three-year-old can muster, that his fourth birthday party had to be “fancy like a king.” This was last April 12th, right in the middle of our typical Portland drizzle, and I was staring at a living room full of primary-colored plastic blocks thinking how on earth I was…
My living room looked like a bottle of Pepto Bismol had exploded, and honestly, I wasn’t even mad about it. It was August 14th, 2025, and Austin was hitting a brutal 102 degrees, but inside, we were living in a cool, fuscia-tinted dream for my niece Chloe’s 12th birthday. I had exactly $47 left in…
My living room in Denver looked like a soggy shipwreck last Tuesday afternoon. I had twenty-four sheets of heavy-duty cardstock soaking in cold Earl Grey tea on the coffee table. My eight-year-old, Leo, poked at a damp corner and asked if we were making “old trash.” No, Leo. We were crafting the perfect pirate invitation…
Barnaby looked absolutely ridiculous in his miniature denim vest, but my human guests were the real problem. It was April 19, 2025, and the Austin humidity was already thick enough to chew. I had spent three weeks planning “Barnaby’s Barks and Barbecue” for his third birthday, and I realized ten minutes before people arrived that…
Teaching third grade in Houston means I live for the summer, but I spend my weekends submerged in glue sticks and glitter. Last Saturday, April 11, 2026, I found myself in my backyard at 103 degrees Fahrenheit trying to explain to nine sweaty 12-year-olds why they couldn’t actually climb the brick wall. My nephew Leo…
Twenty-two sets of sticky fingers were currently pressing against my classroom windows while I frantically tried to untangle eight rolls of crepe paper. It was May 14, 2025, a Tuesday that felt like a long-drawn-out Friday, and I was in the middle of transforming Room 402 into a tropical rainforest for our end-of-year reading celebration….
February in Chicago is basically a test of human endurance, especially when you have four-year-old twins named Leo and Maya who are vibrating with enough energy to power a small city. Last year, on February 12th, 2024, I decided to lean into the madness by hosting a full-blown cocoa-themed bash in our tiny Logan Square…
The smell of Elmer’s glue and damp cardboard usually signals the end of my sanity, but on April 14th, it signaled the greatest Fourth Grade “Paleontology Gala” Houston has ever seen. I stood in Room 402 with 21 nine-year-old kids who were vibrating with excitement. Mason, a boy who usually communicates only in Minecraft noises,…
My backyard looked like a candy-coated war zone after Leo’s 10th birthday party last Saturday in the Highlands area of Denver. Between the stray confetti and the sticky residue of eighty-four fruit chews, one thing stood out as the undisputed MVP of the afternoon: our battered, cardboard carnival pinata. I’ve spent the last three years…
I stood in the middle of Grant Park last November, clutching a bag of artisanal marshmallows like they were some kind of shield against the judgment of twelve pre-teens. My son, Leo, was officially hitting double digits on November 5, 2025. I had decided to figure out how to throw a woodland party for 10…
