Austin in March is usually a dream, but this past Saturday it hit eighty-five degrees, and I was sweating through my “Cool Aunt” t-shirt while trying to glue pixelated squares onto cheap yellow cardstock. Finding the best crown for minecraft party shouldn’t be this hard, yet here I was, surrounded by scraps of paper and…
My kitchen table in Chicago looked like a pink explosion had met a mud slide. Two five-year-olds, Maya and Leo, were screaming about “George’s dinosaur” while I tried to figure out how to make a five-dollar pair of thrifted boots look like high-end decor. It was April 12, 2024, and I had exactly $58 left…
My son Leo turned three on April 12, 2025, right in the middle of a humid Atlanta spring that turned my backyard into a literal swamp. If you have ever tried to herd seventeen toddlers through a “Pokemon Safari” while wearing a humid-dampened Pikachu onesie, you know my pain. My initial plan was a total…
The humidity in Houston during a March afternoon is enough to melt the spirit of even the most seasoned third-grade teacher, but add 11 rowdy kids and a stack of flimsy cardstock, and you have a recipe for what I call “The Great Bluey Collapse of 2025.” It was March 22nd, and I was helping…
October 14, 2023. The temperature in Houston was a sticky 91 degrees, and I had thirteen three-year-olds staring at me with blue frosting smeared across their noses. As a second-grade teacher who organizes at least six classroom parties a year for Room 204, I thought I was invincible. I manage twenty-four eight-year-olds daily. Toddlers? Child’s…
Twenty-two nine-year-olds in a Houston classroom during a humid Tuesday afternoon is exactly as chaotic as it sounds. I have spent fifteen years wrangling third graders, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is that a themed party is only as strong as its surfaces. Last April 12th, for Chloe’s ninth birthday…
My living room in Austin smelled like pepperoni grease and frantic 11-year-old boy energy on the afternoon of March 14, 2026. It was my nephew Leo’s big day, and I had foolishly agreed to host sixteen pre-teens for a galactic celebration that I hoped would be “the” event of the spring. In the middle of…
I have spent fifteen long years corralling twenty-two second graders through the thick Houston humidity, so I know exactly what a “high-stakes environment” looks like. It is a classroom on a Friday before a long weekend. Last March, specifically March 14, 2024, I decided to apply my classroom management skills to my nephew Leo’s third…
Leo woke up on October 12, 2024, with a singular, high-pitched mission: he wanted to eat his birthday pancakes off JJ’s face. If you have a toddler, you know that specific brand of obsession. My youngest turned four that day, and in our suburban Portland house, that meant the “Wheels on the Bus” was playing…
I usually cap my kids’ birthday parties at a strict fifty-dollar bill. Period. But when my twins, Leo and Maya, turned five last October 12th, the guest list ballooned to 20 kids from their new kindergarten class. The average American parent spent $450 on a child’s fifth birthday party in 2024, according to recent retail…
