My kitchen floor is currently a graveyard of red confetti and half-eaten goldfish crackers. It is August 14, 2024, and we just survived Leo’s second birthday party here in suburban Portland. If you had told me three years ago that I would be obsessing over the structural integrity of elmo birthday plates, I would have…
Leo lunged at the TV screen, his sticky toddler fingers nearly smearing a pixelated lemur, and that was the moment I realized our living room was about to become a creature rescue center. My son turned two on April 12, 2024, and like every other toddler in Denver right now, he is obsessed with Chris…
My backyard looked like the aftermath of the Indy 500 last Saturday, June 14, 2025, and my ears are still ringing slightly from the chaos. Leo turned seven, and being the safety-obsessed dad that I am, I spent three weeks researching the perfect race car party noise makers set because I refuse to buy lead-painted…
The humidity in Atlanta on June 14, 2024, felt like walking through a warm, wet blanket, which is exactly how my daughter Maya described her vision for her tenth birthday. She wanted the ocean. Specifically, she wanted the Motunui island vibe right in our backyard that currently consists of patchy Bermuda grass and a rusting…
My classroom floor currently smells like a mixture of industrial-grade disinfectant and spilled apple juice, which is the standard fragrance of a Tuesday afternoon in Houston. I have spent the last twelve years teaching second grade, and if there is one thing I have mastered besides the common core math standards, it is the delicate…
Sweat was dripping down my neck in the humid Houston heat last May as twenty-two fourth graders circled a cardboard Bluey hanging from the oak tree behind our classroom. We had just finished our end-of-year testing, and I promised them a “Heeler-style” celebration if they survived the math section without crying. Naturally, I spent three…
My kitchen floor still has a suspicious iridescent sheen from the Great Glitter Explosion of 2024, a day that taught me everything about survival and shimmer. When Chloe turned eleven last April, specifically on the 12th, she looked me dead in the eye and said she wanted a party that blinded her guests with shine….
My living room looked like a Yoshi egg exploded. It was April 12, 2024, and I was staring at a pile of soggy cardboard boxes that were supposed to be Bowser’s Castle for my son Leo’s 7th birthday. Living in suburban Portland means you bet on the rain, and I lost. The “castle” I spent…
Springtime in Austin hits differently when you are trying to coordinate eighteen twelve-year-olds who are suddenly “too cool” for traditional birthday themes but still secretly want to hunt for golden eggs. On April 4, 2026, my goddaughter Lily decided she wanted a “Some Bunny is Twelve” bash, which sent me on a frantic hunt through…
Our Rainy Day Easter Hunt: What Worked (and What Didn’t) for my Crew Hey folks, Rafael here from Omaha. Hope everyone’s doing good! Man, Easter snuck up on us this year, didn’t it? We had big plans, you know, for a real backyard bash with the whole family, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Woke…
