Maya turned nine on a scorching Saturday in March 2025, and despite the fact that she is practically a tween, her obsession with Elmo has never wavered. I spent three weeks scouring the thrift stores along Burnet Road here in Austin to find the exact shade of “Sesame Street Red” for her backyard bash. My…
Maya turned twelve last Wednesday, and my living room in Denver looked like a Victorian parlor collided with a modern art gallery. Twelve is a tricky age because they are technically still kids, but they desperately want to be seen as sophisticated adults who discuss local politics over Earl Grey. I spent weeks obsessing over…
Two toddlers. One tiny Chicago apartment. Eighteen screaming two-year-olds running around swinging foam tubes at my kneecaps. This was my reality on May 12, 2024. Finding diy star wars party decorations cheap is usually a frustrating nightmare of licensed cardboard cutouts that cost twenty bucks a pop. I refused to pay it. I am Priya….
The smell of industrial-grade floor wax and lukewarm coffee always reminds me of May in Houston. My classroom, Room 214, was vibrating with the energy of nineteen twelve-year-olds who were about five minutes away from checking out for the summer. I stood there, clutching a clipboard like a shield, staring at a stack of cardboard…
The wind off Lake Michigan rattled my window on March 12, 2024, as I stared at a pile of brown butcher paper and $1 store ivy vines. My twins, Leo and Maya, were turning three in exactly four days. Most Chicago moms I know spend $500 on “aesthetic” play cafes for toddlers. I had exactly…
My kitchen table in Logan Square currently looks like a glitter bomb went off in a tutu factory. My twins, Maya and Sophie, turned 11 on March 14, 2026, and their demands for a “sophisticated but pink” ballerina bash nearly broke my brain. Living in Chicago means I have to be scrappy because everything—from the…
My daughter Maya turned six last Saturday, and I found myself standing in the middle of a pink glitter tornado in our Atlanta living room, wondering how a guy who fixes HVAC systems for a living ended up debating the structural integrity of a cardboard castle. Being a single dad means you wear a lot…
Hey everyone! Leah here, from San Antonio, TX. My Ruby, bless her 10-year-old heart, has decided she absolutely, positively needs an outdoor butterfly party for her birthday this year. Not just any party, mind you, but an outdoor butterfly party. I thought I was done with themed parties after Beckett’s third birthday where I tried…
My kitchen table disappeared under a sea of monster-leaf stencils and gold-flecked cardstock on a rainy Tuesday last March. It was March 12, 2024, to be exact. I was deep in the trenches of planning Leo’s 11th birthday, and he had decided he was “too old for cartoons.” He wanted a jungle theme, but he…
I spent three weeks obsessing over the exact shade of “Monarch Orange” for my niece Lily’s 5th birthday bash at Zilker Park last April. April in Austin usually means bluebonnets and perfect breezes, but on April 12, 2025, the thermometer hit 88 degrees before noon, and the humidity felt like a wet wool blanket. I…
