Thirty-two pairs of eyes watched me like I was holding the secrets to the universe, but really, I was just holding a stack of lime green paper bags and a very exhausted Sharpie. It was a Tuesday in Houston, the kind where the humidity makes the classroom walls feel like they’re sweating, and I had…
My kitchen floor is currently a graveyard of red confetti, half-eaten chicken nuggets, and exactly one lonely plastic mustache that fell off a cup three hours ago. If you had asked me on Tuesday morning, March 11th, how I felt about Toby’s 5th birthday, I would have told you I was a goddess of organization….
Static electricity is the absolute devil when you are trying to wrangle three dozen silver latex balloons in a 90-degree Austin humidity spike. My hair was a frizz-halo, my Goldendoodle, Bowie, was barking at a floating astronaut, and I was three seconds away from canceling the entire “Three-Two-One-Blastoff” theme for my nephew Leo’s third birthday….
Twelve-year-olds are a strange species. My son, Sam, informed me three weeks ago that his birthday theme needed to be “ironic toddler core.” This meant he wanted the most juvenile, ear-worm-inducing decorations possible for a room full of middle schoolers who are currently obsessed with skating and complex Minecraft mods. I found myself standing in…
I am currently sitting on my living room floor, surrounded by three kids who are all vibrating at different frequencies. Lily, my eleven-year-old, is trying to explain the physics of black holes to four-year-old Leo, while seven-year-old Sam is just spinning in circles until he falls over. It is a Tuesday. I have a half-eaten…
As a first-grade teacher, I’ve seen it all. I’ve hosted more than 40 classroom parties over the years. I’ve survived the sugar-fueled chaos of Valentine’s Day, the barely-contained energy of a Halloween parade, and the sheer volume of an end-of-year pizza party. Some themes are just asking for trouble. A few years back, I agreed…
I am currently sitting at my kitchen table, knee-deep in navy blue tulle and silver star-shaped confetti that I will undoubtedly be vacuuming out of the rug until 2029. My youngest, Toby, is finally napping after a three-hour standoff over a piece of cheese, and my older two are, for once, not fighting. This is…
I remember sitting on my living room floor last October, specifically on the 14th, surrounded by three different shades of navy cardstock and a very confused golden retriever named Barnaby. My niece, Maya, was turning one, and my sister-in-law had tapped me as the “Creative Director.” That basically meant I was the one tasked with…
The Celestial Obsession: Why We’re All Staring at the Ceiling I stood in my living room last March, specifically on Tuesday the 12th, staring at a pile of discarded cardboard stars and feeling like a total failure as a parent. My son, Leo, was turning two. I wanted magic. I wanted that soft, ethereal glow…
My youngest, Leo, turned four last June, but I still have vivid nightmares about his first birthday. It was June 12, 2022. The thermometer in our Austin backyard hit 98 degrees by 10 AM. I had this grand vision of a “Celestial Oasis.” In reality, it was a group of twelve sweaty adults and four…
