There I was on a gloomy Tuesday in my Portland kitchen, aggressively peeling a stubborn crust of dried frosting off the counter while frantically scrolling for safari party supplies amazon on my phone. Leo was turning seven in exactly ten days. He declared, quite casually over breakfast, that he wanted a jungle. I had grand…
The wind off Lake Michigan was howling at thirty miles per hour on March 14, 2025, which is exactly why I decided to host thirteen five-year-olds in my cramped Chicago bungalow. Maya and Leo were turning five, and their current obsession was a certain wayfinder from Motunui. I had a self-imposed limit of fifty dollars…
The Houston humidity had other plans for my fourth-grade classroom on April 14, 2024. I was standing on a shaky plastic chair, sweat beads forming under my bangs, trying to stick a fairy party streamers set to a ceiling tile that felt like it was made of damp crackers. My life as a teacher is…
Sophie’s face was covered in neon pink hibiscus frosting by 2 PM on June 14, 2025, and that’s when I realized my first major planning mistake. I had spent three weeks researching the tensile strength of various paper goods, but I hadn’t accounted for the sheer velocity of an eleven-year-old with a sugar rush. We…
The sweat was already pooling in my collar on the morning of May 12, 2025. Atlanta humidity takes no prisoners. I had 11 six-year-olds descending on my backyard for my daughter Maya’s birthday, and I was frantically taping paper flowers to my wooden fence. The kids’ activities were totally locked down and ready to go….
My kitchen looked like a glitter bomb hit a lumberyard last June. Maya, my oldest, was turning ten, and she insisted on a “sophisticated” backyard campout. In Denver, that means you have to deal with sudden wind gusts off the Rockies and about twenty-two hyperactive ten-year-olds who think they are at a five-star resort. I…
My living room looked like a pastel bomb had gone off by 6:00 PM on March 14, 2025. Eighteen screaming eleven-year-olds were currently debating the merits of various TikTok dances while my golden retriever, Cooper, tried to eat a stray sequin. This was my daughter Chloe’s big double-digit-plus-one celebration, and I had committed to the…
My daughter Maya looked me dead in the eye two weeks before her fifth birthday and told me she wanted to live in a castle. Being a single dad in Atlanta with a mortgage and a slightly rusty sedan, a real castle was off the table, so I had to figure out how to fake…
My kitchen table on March 14, 2026, looked like a crime scene involving red glitter and spreadsheet printouts. My twins, Leo and Maya, were turning ten on April 5th, and they had collectively decided that a backyard carnival was the only acceptable way to mark a decade of life. I had exactly $60 in my…
Twenty-two third graders vibrating with sugar-induced energy is my Tuesday morning reality here in Houston. Last April 14th, I found myself standing on a wobbly plastic chair at 7:15 AM, trying to stick an octonauts birthday banner to a cinderblock wall that was sweating from the 94% humidity outside. It was Leo’s 8th birthday. His…
