My son Leo turned one on June 12, 2025, and I learned quickly that a toddler doesn’t care about the complex lore of Legendary Pokemon or the strategic depth of a Master Ball. He just wanted to eat the yellow frosting off a Pikachu cupcake while wearing a hat that didn’t itch. As a dad…
My twins, Leo and Maya, turned three on April 12, 2025, and I refused to be the mom who spent a mortgage payment on a backyard barbecue. Living in Chicago means you never know if your April party will be a sunny prairie dream or a sleety nightmare. We got the wind. Not just a…
Leo stared at me with those almost-teenager eyes while Sam tried to glue a paper mustache to our very confused tabby cat. It was March 14, 2026, and my Chicago kitchen looked like a red and green explosion occurred. We had exactly $85 to host 16 twelve-year-olds for the twins’ birthday, and I was currently…
My five-year-old, Leo, stood in the middle of our Atlanta living room last October 12, 2024, wearing a colander on his head and a pair of red oven mitts. He looked me dead in the eye and whispered, “Dad, I’m the imposter.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I knew I…
I found myself kneeling on my hardwood floor last Sunday, April 12, 2025, wielding a pair of tweezers and a shop vac while my five-year-old son, Leo, practiced his “web-slinging” on the dog. We had just finished hosting eighteen sugar-charged kindergartners for Leo’s fifth birthday bash here in Denver. My back ached. My living room…
My son Leo turned ten on October 12, 2025, and I spent three nights staring at a spreadsheet because I was terrified of forgetting a single classmate. We live in Denver, where the weather in October can go from a crisp autumn breeze to a full-blown blizzard in twenty minutes, so the logistics of a…
My kitchen floor is currently a sticky, neon-pink mosaic of dried frosting and discarded craft glitter. My daughter, Leo, turned four last week, and we threw a “Trolls Band Together” extravaganza in our Denver backyard that would make Queen Poppy herself dizzy. Between the sugar rushes and the inevitable hair-tangling, I realized something important. The…
Pink glitter is permanently fused to the grout in my kitchen floor. I scrubbed it yesterday with a toothbrush. Still there. Being a mom to Leo (4), Maya (7), and Sam (11) in suburban Portland means my house is a perpetual craft disaster zone, mostly coated in a fine layer of rain, mud, and whatever…
I am a single dad in Atlanta, which means my life usually revolves around soccer practice, oil changes, and trying to remember if it is library book return day. My journey into the high-stakes world of whimsical stationery began with a complete disaster. On June 12, 2023, I attempted to host a party for my…
Hey everyone, Aiden here from Atlanta. So, we just wrapped up our annual church youth group Easter egg hunt, and let me tell you, it was… an experience. My two, Aurora (4) and Ellie (13), plus my youth group crew, and my dachshund Nugget (who thinks he’s a professional egg hunter), made for quite the…
