I still have blue frosting stubbornly wedged under my left thumbnail from last weekend. Pulling off a budget baby shark party for kindergartner classmates is an extreme sport, especially when you are a suburban Portland mom juggling three wild children. My middle daughter, Maya, turned six on May 3rd. She demanded a massive underwater bash….
March 12th is permanently burned into my memory. My son Leo was turning four. Eighteen sugar-fueled preschoolers were descending on our Denver backyard in exactly four days. Panic set in. I needed green pipes. I needed gold coins. Most importantly, I needed materials that wouldn’t poison toddlers or spontaneously combust. Buying mario party supplies amazon…
Glitter is the craft world’s permanent menace, but cheap crepe paper in a spring rainstorm is a completely different circle of hell. On March 15th, 2024, I found myself standing in my soggy Portland backyard holding three limp rolls of ruined red paper. Eleven screaming eight-year-olds were running through the mud wearing capes. It was…
May 18th, 2024. The sky above Denver was that specific, threatening shade of gray that screams impending hail, yet the thermometer stubbornly read eighty degrees. I stood on my patio gripping a twisted aluminum pole, staring at a giant striped piece of fabric flapping violently in the wind. My son Leo was turning seven in…
We glued the last rhinestone to the welcome sign right as the Austin humidity hit 90 percent. My niece Lily was turning 9 on May 14th, and she wanted exactly one thing. A Sanrio explosion. Finding the best balloons for hello kitty party aesthetics on a budget of exactly $42 made me want to pull…
My living room floor was completely covered in blue glitter. I had exactly forty-five minutes before the doorbell rang. Throwing a budget frozen party for 5 year old twins, Maya and Leo, was supposed to be my masterpiece. I usually keep my kids’ parties strictly under fifty bucks. I am a Chicago mom who prides…
The smell of cheap yellow caution tape is permanently burned into my sinuses. Last March, my sister handed me a clipboard and begged me to plan my nephew Leo’s second birthday. I am an elementary school teacher in Houston. I throw six or more classroom parties every single year for my fourth graders. I run…
I stared at the crumpled receipt sitting on my cramped Chicago kitchen counter. Fifty-three dollars. That was the magic number. Outside, freezing rain battered the windows, but inside my third-floor apartment, a tropical miracle had just occurred. I had successfully pulled off a massive double-feature birthday bash. The morning shift was for my two-year-old twins,…
I stood in my Portland backyard last October, ankle-deep in the kind of Pacific Northwest mud that eats shoes for breakfast, clutching a soggy roll of duct tape like it was my last hope for survival. My oldest, Sam, who is eleven and suddenly too cool for everything, was judging my life choices from the…
My kitchen floor in Denver looked like a literal swamp on the afternoon of April 14, 2024. Lily, my four-year-old daughter, had decided her “Frog and Toad” birthday party required actual mud imported from the backyard. I am Alex. I spend my professional life as a consumer advocate, which essentially means I am the guy…
