Leo turned eight last Saturday, and my backyard in Austin still smells like sunscreen, spilled orange juice, and pure chaotic joy. If you have ever hosted a group of third graders, you know that silence is the enemy of a good time. I stood on my back porch at 10:15 AM, clutching an iced oat…
Teenagers are basically toddlers with better vocabularies and much higher expectations. They don’t want “cute.” They want “aesthetic.” If it doesn’t look good on a screen, it didn’t happen. I learned this the hard way last March when my daughter, Chloe, turned fifteen. She wanted a budget rainbow party for teenager vibes—but specifically “muted, retro,…
My living room floor currently looks like a glittery ranch exploded on it. I’ve got three kids—an 11-year-old who thinks she’s too cool for everything, a 7-year-old obsessed with pink, and a 4-year-old named Leo who firmly believes he is a literal horse. Last Tuesday, while I was trying to scrape dried oatmeal off the…
My kitchen floor was a sticky wasteland of spilled corn syrup and orange soda last Saturday, and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My son Leo turned seven on May 12th, and after our dishwasher decided to flood the basement three days prior, my “lavish” party budget evaporated faster than a puddle in…
I have survived twenty-three Houston springs in a third-grade classroom. By early May, the humidity outside is oppressive, the air conditioning in my portable building rattles like an old tractor, and twenty-two eight-year-olds are practically vibrating out of their hard plastic chairs. I throw six major classroom parties a year to keep the chaos organized…
Portland summers are usually a frantic race against the next rain cloud, so when August 14th rolled around last year, I was determined to squeeze every bit of sunshine out of Leo’s 4th birthday. My house looked like a citrus truck had tipped over in the living room, mostly because I’d spent three weeks obsessing…
My kitchen floor in Chicago was a sea of half-dried neon paint and discarded toilet paper rolls last Tuesday morning. Leo and Maya, my two-year-old twins, had just discovered that hitting a plastic bowl with a whisk makes a very satisfying thwack noise. The twins are wild. They have energy that could light up the…
My kitchen floor was a disaster zone of red crepe paper and dried flour paste on the morning of October 12, 2025. Leo and Maya, my three-year-old twins, were currently screaming because I cut their toast into triangles instead of squares. This was exactly why I decided that a roblox pinata for adults was a…
My backyard in East Austin looked like a primary-colored fever dream on March 12, 2024. The Texas sun was already starting to bake the cedar fence, and my dog, Barnaby, was trying his hardest to eat a stray yellow feather that had fallen off a five-foot Big Bird cutout. I was turning thirty, and instead…
My living room looked like a crime scene involving pink glitter and ham-themed cardstock last Tuesday. It was 11:42 PM on April 14, 2026, and I was knee-deep in a peppa pig party treat bags set assembly line for my daughter Chloe’s 8th birthday. Most parents think Peppa is for toddlers, but Chloe and her…
