Twenty-two sets of sticky, glitter-covered fingers are my daily reality in a Houston elementary classroom, but nothing prepared me for Sophie’s 5th birthday party on October 12, 2024. The humidity was sitting at a thick 88 percent. The pink lemonade was flowing like a sugary river. I stood there, watching a tray of mini cupcakes…
I learned the hard way that a classroom birthday party can fall apart over something as small as a hat elastic. Last spring, I had 22 second graders in my room at 1:15 p.m., right after lunch, right when the room still had that sticky juice-box smell and half the class was already buzzing because…
Twenty-two sets of eyes stared at me last Tuesday while “Baby Shark” blasted from my classroom speakers for the fourth time in an hour. My name is Karen, and I have taught fifth grade in Houston for twelve years. You might think eleven-year-olds are too cool for a shark theme. You would be wrong. They…
I sat at my kitchen table in Atlanta on a humid Tuesday morning, staring at a screen trying to figure out how to buy encanto party supplies that wouldn’t arrive looking like they’d been through a paper shredder. My daughter Maya was turning two on July 14th, and she was obsessed. Every morning, it was…
I stood in the middle of my kitchen in Logan Square last August, surrounded by sticky remnants of blue frosting and a pile of tiny, sweaty socks, wondering how on earth I had just pulled off a twin birthday party for under fifty bucks. It was August 12, 2025, a Tuesday that felt like a…
I stood in the party aisle of a big box store in downtown Atlanta, sweating right through my favorite gray t-shirt. Leo was turning exactly three on August 14th, 2024. Three-year-olds are supposed to like farm animals. Or generic fire trucks. My kid wanted blocks. Green blocks, brown blocks, pixelated pigs that make weird snorting…
My son Leo turned two on April 4th, and by 2:14 PM, my living room in Denver looked like a Bowser-themed tornado hit a spaghetti factory. There is a specific kind of chaos that happens when thirteen toddlers decide that red sauce is actually face paint. I stood there, clutching a stack of flimsy, generic…
My living room looked like a Marvel movie exploded, and not the high-budget Disney kind. We are talking the direct-to-video, low-rent version where the hero’s “superhero party essentials” consist mostly of cardboard and frantic energy. It was March 14, 2024. My son Leo was turning 12, and he had issued a challenge that would make…
Texas humidity and cinderblock walls are the natural enemies of any elementary school teacher trying to throw a halfway decent party. I sat on my rolling stool last Tuesday, April 7th, staring at a pile of primary-colored crepe paper and wondered if the PTA would notice if I just taped a bunch of actual plastic…
Leo and Maya turned twelve on April 12, 2025, right as a nasty Chicago sleet storm decided to rattle our windows on Western Avenue. I had exactly sixty dollars in my pocket and two kids who suddenly decided that “cowboy cool” was the only acceptable vibe for their joint birthday bash. Being a mom of…
