I spent three hours staring at my kitchen island in Austin last October, surrounded by mounds of brown twine and gold-wrapped chocolates, trying to figure out how many party favors do I need for a harry potter party for my niece Chloe’s tenth birthday. My dog Barnaby, a Golden Retriever who thinks he is a…
I am the kind of dad who reads the fine print on a box of crayons. Last year, my son Leo turned nine, and he decided his bedroom walls weren’t enough; he needed the entire solar system. Finding the best party favors for space party setups shouldn’t feel like rocket science, but I spent four…
I still smell stale pepperoni and synthetic fog machine juice when I look at the pictures from last fall. Throwing a Five Nights at Freddy’s themed birthday bash for my nephew Leo’s 5th birthday was an absolute fever dream. Yes, five. Do not ask me why a kindergartener is obsessed with haunted, malfunctioning animatronic bears….
My kitchen table in Logan Square was a disaster zone last April. Sticky. Colorful. Totally chaotic. Maya and Leo were turning three, and I had exactly $50 in my pocket to throw them a birthday bash that didn’t look like a clearance bin exploded. I spent three nights hunched over empty spaghetti sauce jars and…
Nothing humbles a man quite like standing on a shaky stepstool in a Denver basement, trying to tape 48 individual squares of lime-green cardstock to a concrete wall while nine eight-year-olds scream about “creepers” in the next room. I thought I was prepared for Leo’s 8th birthday yesterday, April 18, 2026. I had the snacks,…
Popcorn kernels always find a way into my shoes. Last March 12, 2024, I hosted our annual “End of Year Carnival” for 22 energetic second-graders in my Houston classroom, and the chaos started before the first bell even rang. My floor was a sea of red and white stripes, and by 10:00 AM, my teaching…
My living room floor in Logan Square looked like a robot war zone by 3:00 PM last Saturday. Blue and red foil shards caught the afternoon light, glinting off the rug while eighteen four-year-olds screamed at the top of their lungs. I sat on the edge of the sofa, clutching a lukewarm coffee, and realized…
My living room floor in Austin still sparkles with a faint, stubborn dusting of iridescent glitter from April 12th, and honestly, I am not even mad about it. My niece Maya turned five that Saturday, and because I am the “extra” auntie with a dog who owns more tutus than I do, I took over…
My twins, Maya and Leo, turned nine on a slushy Tuesday in Chicago this past March, and I had exactly ninety-one dollars to make twenty-one kids feel like they just stepped into a magical Colombian villa. Usually, I’m the mom scouring the clearance aisles at the Oak Lawn Target, but for their Encanto-themed bash on…
The humidity in Austin on April 12th was basically a personal insult to my hair, but my niece Chloe didn’t care because it was her 6th birthday and a peppa pig pinata was the guest of honor. My golden retriever, Cooper, was already pacing the patio, sensing that “rain” in the form of sugar was…
