Last April, my son Leo turned three in our drafty Denver living room, and I quickly discovered that handing a heavy wooden bat to a group of nineteen toddlers is basically an invitation for an insurance claim. We live in the Highlands neighborhood where the houses are close together and the living rooms are small….
My kitchen island vanished under a tectonic layer of King Arthur flour while nineteen four-year-olds screamed about sprinkles. I stood there, white dust coating my favorite navy apron, clutching a stack of gold-rimmed plates like a shield. My twins, Leo and Maya, were turning four on a Tuesday, and I had exactly $50 to make…
The living room smelled like pepperoni and plastic by 2 PM last Saturday. My son, Leo, had just turned eight on March 14, and the chaos of eight sugar-fueled boys was reaching a fever pitch in our Denver home. I spent three weeks hunting for the perfect lego party photo props set because Leo is…
The air conditioner in room 402 was wheezing like a marathon runner in the thick Houston humidity on March 14, 2024, but my twenty-two eight-year-olds didn’t care because it was finally Shark Day. I have spent fifteen years at this elementary school, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is that second…
I am still finding purple paper confetti behind my couch. The great Casita-themed birthday bash of November 12th, 2023, was a beautiful, ear-splitting mess. Eleven six-year-olds. One tiny suburban Portland living room. And exactly one perfectly chaotic encanto party noise makers set that almost broke my sanity but absolutely made my son Leo’s entire year….
My shoes are still squishing from the afternoon of June 14, 2025. It was a Saturday. The sun was beating down on Congress Park Pool here in Denver. My son Leo was turning seven. I had thirteen kids, a cooler full of juice boxes, and a mounting sense of dread about the parting gifts. I…
Last October, I found myself standing in the middle of a craft store aisle in Buckhead at 9:15 PM, clutching a ceramic fox and wondering why I’d promised Maya a fancy birthday. Maya turned four on October 12, 2025, and I’d decided to ditch the neon plastics of previous years for something that didn’t make…
The humidity in Austin on April 12, 2025, felt like a warm, wet blanket, the kind that makes your hair double in volume before you even step off the porch. I stood in my backyard with 144 yellow and brown latex spheres scattered at my feet, clutching a generic sunflower party balloons set that promised…
My living room looked like a literal construction site last Tuesday, and not the cool Rubble-from-Adventure-Bay kind of construction site. It was more of a “three kids under twelve and a dog who just discovered a bag of confetti” kind of disaster area. Sam is four, Maya is seven, and Ben just hit double digits…
Leo and Maya stood on their tiptoes, pressing their sticky noses against the glass of the oven door while the “Heeler” blue cake rose. It was June 14, 2025, a sweltering Saturday in Chicago where the humidity makes your hair double in size and your patience half as long. I had exactly $85 in my…
