My son Leo turned seven on March 14, 2026, and I spent the preceding forty-eight hours in a frantic, air-deprived haze trying to turn our Denver living room into a pixelated Mushroom Kingdom. Pi Day is already high-pressure for a dad who likes math, but adding a “Super Leo” theme meant I had to tackle…
My living room looked like a glittery pink war zone last Tuesday afternoon. I was knee-deep in cardstock, elastic string, and double-sided tape while trying to figure out how to make hello kitty cone hats for adults that wouldn’t snap and hit someone in the eye. You see, my middle daughter Maya turned seven last…
Leo looked me dead in the eye on March 14, 2026, and told me he wanted a shark-themed birthday. My son was turning fourteen. This was not the toddler request I expected, but Leo and his friends Toby and Sam had decided that “ironic nostalgia” was the peak of humor. They wanted a budget baby…
My twins, Mia and Maya, turned eleven on April 5, and if there is one thing I have learned about raising two pre-teens in a drafty Albany Park apartment, it is that they have champagne tastes on my tap-water budget. They wanted a “Swan Lake” aesthetic. I had exactly $50 in my pocket and a…
Leo’s 6th birthday on March 12, 2024, started with a literal roar and ended with a gallon of tropical fruit punch soaking into my classroom’s “Reading Corner” rug. Twenty six-year-olds are a force of nature. They are loud. They are sticky. Most importantly, they are incredibly destructive when they have a flimsy cup in their…
My living room smelled like wet fur and spilled grape juice on March 12, 2024, because I thought I could handle eleven eight-year-olds and a very confused Golden Retriever named Buster. It was Maya’s eighth birthday, and she had decided, with the unwavering conviction of a third-grader, that we were throwing a “Paw-ty.” I was…
Chicago wind in October does not play nice with birthday plans. I learned this the hard way last year on October 12, when I tried to host a flag football bash for my twins, Leo and Sam, at Humboldt Park. I had spent twelve dollars on these flimsy, paper-thin covers that I thought would look…
My kitchen looked like a blue glitter bomb exploded last Saturday morning at 7:00 AM. There was teal frosting on the ceiling. Leo, my energetic four-year-old, was sprinting around the island in a cape made of a literal fishing net he found in the garage while Barnaby, our Golden Retriever, sat patiently wearing a GINYOU…
I am currently standing in the middle of my Houston classroom, staring at a smear of turquoise frosting on the floor and wondering where it all went south. My second graders just finished their semester-end bash, and let me tell you, thirty kids with sugar-crusted fingers is a lot of personality to manage on a…
My son Leo turned seven on April 12, 2025, and I decided we weren’t going to be the parents who spent $800 on a trampoline park. Denver is a cowboy town at heart, so we went full frontier. I spent weeks scouring the internet for cowboy party essentials that wouldn’t fall apart or end up…
