I stood in my kitchen at 11:42 PM on a rainy Tuesday, covered in teal frosting that looked more like toxic sludge than the beautiful Polynesian sea I’d promised my daughter, clutching a box of cheap wax that wouldn’t even stand up straight. My middle child, Maya, was turning five that weekend, and I had…
My twins, Maya and Leo, hit double digits on May 14, 2025, and I found myself staring at a bank account that didn’t share their enthusiasm for a milestone celebration. Living in a small, two-bedroom apartment in Logan Square, Chicago, means space is tight and my wallet is usually tighter. Maya wanted an “Enchanted Midnight…
Maya turned seven last June, and she decided her entire world needed to be the color of a copper penny dipped in pink paint. I live in Denver, where the dry air makes static electricity a nightmare and party planning usually involves a frantic trip to the shops near Cherry Creek. My daughter is relentless….
My living room floor in Logan Square looked like a blue paper massacre last Tuesday afternoon. Glue sticks were rolling under the radiator. Scraps of cerulean cardstock littered the rug. I had nineteen toddlers coming over for Leo and Maya’s second birthday on April 12, and my bank account was screaming. We were doing a…
February 12th in Austin was supposed to be sunny, but instead, I was staring at 144 deflated latex circles while my dog, Bear, tried to eat a snowflake sticker. My niece, Harper, was turning seven, and she had exactly one demand: a winter wonderland that would make Elsa look like an amateur. I failed. Miserably….
Leo looked at me with those giant, expectant eyes on the morning of April 12, 2025, and asked for a “cake party,” which immediately sent me into a mild panic because my last attempt at DIY baking involved accidentally swapping salt for sugar during a 2023 holiday bake-off. Being a single dad in Atlanta means…
Last March, my living room in Austin looked like a primary-colored disaster zone. It was my son Leo’s fifth birthday, and I had exactly ninety-nine dollars left in my “fun” account to pull off a budget lego party for kindergartner chaos that included 21 kids, all of whom were surprisingly age two or younger siblings…
Last April 12th, I found myself sitting on a tiny plastic chair in our Denver backyard, surrounded by fifteen screaming seven-year-olds and a mountain of pink tulle. My daughter, Maya, had decided that her seventh birthday needed to be a “High Tea in the Rockies” event. I am a dad who spends way too much…
I was knee-deep in gold-foil chocolate coins last Saturday when my 7-year-old, Leo, decided his pirate eye patch made him invisible. He proceeded to try and “steal” a piece of cake right from under my nose while I was frantically setting up the photo booth in our living room in Beaverton. It was raining—classic Portland—so…
My classroom floors in Houston have seen things that would make a seasoned crime scene investigator weep, but nothing compares to the day Leo decided his red fruit punch was actually “lava” during our end-of-year blast on May 12, 2024. Red sticky liquid cascaded off the edge of a cheap, thin paper cover like a…
