My vacuum cleaner still rattles from the Great Brain Massacre of October 2023. It was Sam’s 8th birthday, and living in suburban Portland means you can usually count on two things: relentless drizzle and a house full of muddy footprints. That year, Sam decided he was over superheroes and wanted “real scary zombies.” I thought…
April 12, 2025, started with a frantic trip to the hardware store for duct tape because the Denver wind was determined to turn my backyard “Wild West” saloon into a heap of scrap wood. My son Leo was turning six, and he insisted on a theme involving horses, spurs, and “bad guys” he could arrest….
My niece Maya turned eight on a sweltering Saturday last April, and I somehow ended up in charge of the swag. Being the “cool aunt” with a hyperactive Goldendoodle named Luna means my Austin backyard is basically the neighborhood’s unofficial event center. I spent three weeks obsessed with finding the perfect moana party party favors…
My living room still has a faint shimmer of iridescent glitter from Sophie’s fourth birthday last April, and honestly, I’ve stopped trying to vacuum it up because it just feels like a permanent part of the floorboards now. Planning a party for a four-year-old in the middle of a rainy Portland spring is basically an…
Maya turned three on April 12, 2025, and I learned more about the structural integrity of butterfly birthday party blowers than any sane father should ever know. We live in Denver, where the wind coming off the Rockies can turn a backyard gathering into a high-stakes pursuit of runaway paper goods. My living room looked…
The smell of pepperoni grease and sweaty socks is the official scent of a nine-year-old’s birthday party in Atlanta. I stood in my kitchen on April 12, 2024, staring at a stack of yellow cardboard and wondering why I ever agreed to do this alone. My son Leo was turning nine, and his only request…
My kitchen table in Rogers Park looked like a primary-colored explosion happened on a Tuesday night. Glue sticks were rolling across the hardwood, and I had blue glitter in my eyebrows that stayed there for three days. My twins, Leo and Maya, had just announced they wanted a “Rescue Squad” theme for their ninth birthday,…
Eighteen nine-year-olds screaming “It’s-a me!” at the top of their lungs while sprinting through my backyard in Austin is a specific kind of core memory I’ll never forget. Last March 14th, for my son Leo’s 9th birthday, I decided to go full-throttle on a Mushroom Kingdom theme without draining my savings account. I spent exactly…
Saturday afternoon in East Austin usually involves taco trucks and overpriced cold brew, but on March 14, 2026, my backyard transformed into a shimmering, chaotic tribute to a cartoon dog from Brisbane. My niece, Chloe, was turning 8, and she had one non-negotiable demand: “Make it sparkly, Auntie Sarah.” I took that to heart. I…
Twenty-one fifth graders in a Houston classroom on a humid Tuesday afternoon is a recipe for a disaster that no amount of teacher training can prepare you for. Last October 14th, I decided to host our annual fall harvest bash, and let me tell you, my sanity was hanging by a very thin thread. Between…
