Hey everyone, Kenji Clark here from Indy. Easter’s coming up fast, and with Alice now seven, our annual egg hunt is becoming a serious competitive sport in our backyard. Which is great, until you remember we also have Oreo, our very enthusiastic lab. Every year, it’s a full-on mission to keep him from munching on…
Twenty-two toddlers in a Houston backyard during mid-April is a recipe for either a core memory or a complete psychological breakdown. My nephew Leo turned three last Saturday, and because I am the “party auntie” who teaches second grade during the week, my sister volunteered my sanity for the planning. We decided on the melon-themed…
My son Leo turned three last March, and I decided, in my infinite wisdom as a single dad in Atlanta, that I could handle a house full of toddlers without losing my mind. I was wrong about the sanity part, but I did manage to pull off a celebration that didn’t involve calling the fire…
My second-grade classroom in Houston usually looks like a tornado hit a glitter factory by Friday afternoon, but nothing compares to the absolute mayhem of the “Some Bunny is Special” party I hosted for my nephew’s preschool class last April. We had fifteen three-year-olds, a gallon of spilled apple juice, and a desperate need to…
My kitchen smelled like wet hay and frosting on April 12 last year. Leo and Maya were turning four, and I had exactly $50 in my pocket to feed ten kids and make my Albany Park backyard look like a rural oasis. The wind in Chicago does not care about your Pinterest board. It was…
I spent Saturday afternoon, June 14, 2025, chasing fifteen 12-year-olds through Denver’s Cheesman Park while wearing a cone-shaped hat that smelled faintly of lavender and old paper. My daughter, Maya, decided that her twelfth birthday was the perfect time for a “Grown-Up Fairy Tea Party,” which meant her friends and their mothers all needed to…
The wind was howling off Lake Michigan, rattling the windows of our small bungalow in Jefferson Park while I stood in the middle of my living room, surrounded by a sea of red, black, and white latex. It was March 14, 2026, the morning of Leo and Sam’s eighth birthday, and I was currently losing…
My tiny Logan Square apartment looked like a Pepto-Bismol factory exploded last Saturday afternoon. Pink glitter was wedged into the floorboards, and my twins, Maya and Chloe, were vibrating with enough sugar energy to power the entire Chicago “L” train system. We just wrapped up their fourth birthday, and the biggest stressor wasn’t the cake…
The purple frosting was everywhere. It was on the walls, on the dog, and somehow on the ceiling fan. I stood in my kitchen in suburban Portland last month, staring at 17 twelve-year-old girls who were all singing “The Family Madrigal” at the top of their lungs, and I realized I had made a grave…
My living room smelled like low-tide and cheap spray adhesive for three days last August. I am Alex, and if you saw me on August 14, 2025, I was covered in iridescent glitter and questioning every life choice that led me to building a seven-foot balloon arch in the Denver heat. My wife, Sarah, turned…
