Standing in the middle of my living room last October, surrounded by 18 screaming three-year-olds and a dog who had just eaten half a plate of arepas, I realized I’d finally cracked the code. My daughter Maya turned three on October 12, 2025, and like every other kid in Atlanta, she wanted the Madrigal magic….
My third-grade classroom smelled faintly of Elmer’s glue, damp cedar shavings, and impending chaos on the sticky morning of April 12th. Sixteen eight-year-olds were practically vibrating in their hard plastic chairs. We were finally celebrating the release of our classroom caterpillars after weeks of intense observation. After twelve years of teaching in Houston and throwing…
I never thought I would be vacuuming tiny iridescent scales out of my beard at three o’clock on a Tuesday morning, but that is the reality of being a “girl dad” in Denver. My daughter, Maya, turned five on April 12th, and she informed me with the absolute certainty only a preschooler possesses that her…
My daughter Maya turned six on June 15, 2025, and despite my desperate hopes that she would move on to space travel or even paleontology, we were back in the ocean. In Atlanta, June feels like you are living inside someone else’s warm mouth, so a backyard “under the sea” bash seemed logical until I…
My kitchen looked like a rodeo exploded in a hurricane last Tuesday, and I am not even a little bit sorry about it. Between my four-year-old, Toby, trying to lasso the cat with a piece of brown twine and my oldest, Leo, who just turned eleven and is suddenly “too cool” for everything except apparently…
My living room in Austin looked like a grizzly had moved into a glitter factory, and honestly, I wasn’t mad about it. My dog, Buster, was currently wearing a stray brown ribbon while my niece, Junie, insisted that her teddy bear “Sir Fluffs-a-Lot” deserved a seat at the head of the table. Planning a budget…
My kitchen table currently looks like a pixelated explosion occurred, mostly because I decided that hosting a 30th birthday for my brother-in-law required the same level of intensity as a toddler’s bash. Portland rain is drumming against the window, my youngest is currently trying to eat a green square of cardstock, and I am staring…
June in Austin is absolutely brutal, but when my niece Chloe turned six on June 14, 2025, I promised her the ultimate “muddy puddles” bash in my backyard. I spent three weeks obsessing over every detail because I am that aunt who treats her Golden Retriever, Benson, like a human and every family gathering like…
I’ve spent the last decade in suburban Portland drowning in glitter, honestly. My kitchen island currently looks like a unicorn exploded on it, and I’m not even mad because my best friend’s 30th birthday last April was a total vibe. People think once you hit a certain age, you have to trade the magic for…
Maya was turning four on June 12, 2025, and I had this grand vision of our living room in suburban Portland becoming a life-sized Malibu Dreamhouse. I spent exactly $12.40 on four rolls of various pink crepe paper, thinking I was a decorating genius. My husband, Mark, watched from the kitchen as I stood on…
