My daughter Leo turned one last April, and living in Denver means we are no strangers to a sudden spring blizzard. I stood in my kitchen, staring at a mountain of blue icing and wondering if I had lost my mind. Most parents think about the cake or the guest list first. I was busy…
Twenty-two sixth graders in a humid Houston classroom can turn a delicate butterfly theme into a chaotic wind tunnel in exactly four seconds. I learned this the hard way on March 12, 2024, when I tried to surprise my student Sophie for her 12th birthday during the last period of the day. We had the…
My living room looked like a unicorn exploded in it last Saturday, and not in the cute, Pinterest-worthy way people post about. We are talking sticky strawberry frosting on the baseboards and enough craft glitter to be found by archaeologists in the year 3000. My 9-year-old, Chloe, had finally reached that “I’m a big kid…
Twenty-two kindergarteners in a Houston classroom during a rainy April afternoon is a recipe for what I like to call “controlled combustion.” Last year, on April 14, 2025, I decided to host a Spring Fairy Festival for my students, thinking it would be a serene, magical experience. I was wrong. By 10:15 AM, three girls…
Houston, we have a problem, and it usually involves a tangled mess of fishing line and three dozen silver mylar spheres in the back of my SUV. I’ve spent the last decade wrangling twenty-two third graders through six classroom parties every single year, but nothing prepared me for the chaos of styling an event for…
My ears are still ringing from Maya’s seventh birthday last March, and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. We had eleven rowdy kids crammed into our living room in Beaverton while the typical Portland rain turned our backyard into a swampy mess. I stood there, clutching a lukewarm cup of coffee, watching a…
Nobody warned me that planning a birthday for nineteen three-year-olds in the middle of a Houston humidity spike would feel exactly like managing my second-grade classroom during a surprise fire drill. I stood in my kitchen on March 12, 2024, staring at a pile of pink cardstock and wondering if I had lost my mind….
Last October, I stood in my kitchen in Austin, sweat beaded on my forehead, staring at a red velvet cake that looked less like a superhero tribute and more like a crime scene. It was my best friend Leo’s 30th birthday, and he is the kind of guy who still tracks Marvel release dates like…
The wind off Lake Michigan was hitting 30 miles per hour on March 14, 2025, when I realized my twins, Leo and Maya, expected 19 first-graders to somehow fit in our two-bedroom apartment for a full-blown high-seas adventure. I had exactly $70 in my “party jar,” but I was determined to pull off the most…
My living room smelled like a mix of scorched vanilla and sheer panic three days before Leo and Maya turned five. It was March 12, 2025, and Chicago was doing that thing where it pretends to be spring but actually dumps six inches of slush on your doorstep. I had ten kids coming to our…
