I stood in the middle of my cramped Chicago living room holding a stack of deeply scratched AOL trial CDs. My twins, Maya and Leo, had just turned 13. They desperately wanted a turn-of-the-millennium bash. Finding ideas for a budget y2k party for teenager that didn’t involve dropping $400 on custom neon signs or renting…
My classroom smelled like damp gym socks and stale goldfish crackers on the afternoon of March 12, 2024. Leo, one of my third graders with a gap-toothed grin and a serious obsession with reptiles, sat at his desk staring at a drawing of a loggerhead. His 9th birthday was coming up, and his mom, Sarah,…
I am a forty-one-year-old single dad living in Atlanta, and I sweat through my shirts at trampoline parks. I forget the candles. Three years ago, I accidentally served a strictly vegan child a very non-vegan hot dog. So, trying to figure out the best goodie bags for bluey party themes for a bunch of deeply…
The humidity in Austin on March 12, 2025, was enough to make any dog mom question her life choices, especially while standing in Zilker Park trying to prevent twenty five-year-olds from destroying a cake. The hunt for the perfect minecraft birthday party hats started three weeks before my nephew Leo turned five, and honestly, I…
My kitchen floor in Logan Square still has a tiny, shimmering purple star wedged in the grout from last March, and honestly, I might never scrub it out. It was March 12, 2024, the day my twins, Leo and Maya, turned twelve, and I had exactly $50 in my “party sanity” envelope to entertain sixteen…
Last Tuesday, I sat on my kitchen floor in Portland surrounded by three open cardboard boxes, a half-drunk lukewarm latte, and a very confused golden retriever. Sam, my seven-year-old, decided three weeks ago that his entire identity is now “Master Builder,” which is code for “I want a party that looks like a toy store…
Living in a drafty three-flat in Logan Square with two twelve-year-old boys means my life is a constant state of loud noises and empty refrigerators. On April 10, 2026, Leo and Sam hit the big 1-2, and since we are saving for a used minivan that doesn’t rattle like a bag of marbles, I had…
My kitchen floor still feels slightly tacky from the spilled fruit punch, even though the party ended three days ago. I am sitting here with a cold cup of coffee, staring at a stack of blank paper and a sheet of stickers that look like tiny red spiders. Writing spiderman birthday thank you cards feels…
I spent three weeks scouring Etsy and local Austin bakeries just to find the perfect barbie cake topper for adults. My best friend Jess was turning 30 on March 12, exactly one day before my niece Chloe turned 10. We decided on a massive, pink-drenched dual backyard bash. One party. Two distinct vibes. Eleven screaming…
My living room floor in Houston currently looks like Chase and Marshall had a very messy disagreement with a paper shredder. After trying to scrape three thousand tiny yellow paper lightning bolts off my damp kitchen floor with a credit card while my nephew Leo screamed because I wouldn’t let him eat a crayon, I…
