The humidity in Houston on June 14, 2025, felt like standing inside a giant, wet sock. I had twelve four-year-olds in my backyard for my nephew Jaxson’s “The Big One” birthday party, and I was sweating through my “Teacher of the Year” t-shirt. My kitchen was a disaster zone of blue frosting and goldfish crackers….
My classroom floor in Houston currently looks like a glittery crime scene, and I am fairly certain I have a piece of silver Mylar stuck in my hair. Last Tuesday, March 11th, we hosted our annual “Blast Off” celebration for 17 kindergartners who are all hovering around that magical age of five. If you think…
The faint smell of hay bales still lingers on my back porch. I spent three weeks planning my nephew Leo’s third birthday, attempting to turn my tiny East Austin yard into a rustic petting zoo for him and ten of his wildest preschool friends. My golden retriever, Barnaby, was reluctantly wearing a fuzzy sheep costume…
Alright, GINYOUTribe, your boy Marcus here. I need some serious intel, stat! Lily, my 12-year-old, bless her heart, she’s decided her upcoming birthday bash is gonna be a full-on ‘Pink Paradise’ or some such Barbie-fied extravaganza. Which, fine, whatever makes her happy. Happy kid, happy dad, right? But the cost of these party supplies, y’all!…
Green frosting on the ceiling. I still don’t know how it got there. It was October 14th, rain pounding relentlessly against our Portland gutters, and my living room looked like a botanical garden had been hit by a freight train. Right in the middle of the mess, little Leo was running laps around the coffee…
Houston humidity is the natural enemy of a perfectly frosted cupcake, and I learned that the hard way on March 12, 2025. It was Leo’s 6th birthday party in my classroom. Room 204 was a literal pressure cooker of twenty-one sweating first graders who had just come in from a 90-degree recess. I stood there,…
The scent of Tiger Balm and expensive craft IPA hung heavy in my Austin backyard last February when my best friend Mike finally earned his third-degree black belt. Most people think of tiny humans in oversized white pajamas when they hear the word karate, but Mike’s “Black Belt & Brews” bash was strictly for the…
Living in Chicago with twins means two things: you learn to love the wind and you learn to stretch a dollar until it screams. My twins, Leo and Maya, turned nine on July 12th, 2025, and I had exactly $60 in my pocket to make their backyard carnival dreams come true. I felt the pressure…
My kitchen floor was covered in three different types of black tape, and my youngest, Leo, who just turned four, was currently trying to chew on a plastic checkered flag. This was May 14, 2024. I was exactly twenty-seven minutes away from eighteen energetic 9-year-olds descending on our suburban Portland home for Sam’s birthday. I…
My living room looked like a pink hand grenade had gone off in a chocolate factory. There I was, a thirty-eight-year-old single dad in the middle of Atlanta, knee-deep in crinkled streamers and half-eaten cupcakes, wondering how my life became a quest for the best peppa pig party supplies. It wasn’t supposed to be this…
