Mud everywhere. My kitchen smelled like vanilla and damp shoes. Leo was turning seven on March 12, 2025, and I had exactly thirty-five bucks left in the birthday “fun fund” after buying a giant inflatable slide we couldn’t even use because of the typical Portland drizzle. I stood there looking at a plain grocery store…
It rained. Again. It wouldn’t be a Portland birthday in March without the sky opening up and turning my backyard into a muddy soup, but that didn’t stop twenty screaming 11-year-olds from descending on my living room for Leo’s big day. March 14, 2026, is a date burned into my brain because that was the…
The humidity in Chicago on June 12 last year felt like a wet wool blanket, yet there I was, knee-deep in brown butcher paper and green tissue streamers in my cramped kitchen. My twins, Leo and Maya, were turning eleven, and they had decided—with the stubbornness only fifth graders possess—that they needed an island voyage…
Living in a drafty Logan Square two-flat with twin ten-year-olds means my life is a permanent state of high-decibel chaos. Last Saturday, March 14, 2026, Saanvi and Arjun decided their double-digits birthday needed to be a “Soft Aesthetic Dream,” which is code for everything being mint, peach, or lavender. My bank account currently looks like…
Leo turned three on a Tuesday, but we threw his prehistoric bash on Saturday, March 12, 2025. My backyard in Denver looked like a literal swamp after a late-season snowmelt. Mud everywhere. Puddles deep enough to swallow a toddler’s boot. It was perfect. We were doing the whole dinosaur thing because, let’s be honest, three-year-olds…
My living room in Logan Square looked like a rainbow exploded, and for once, I didn’t care about the glitter embedded in my rug. It was October 14, 2025. My twins, Maya and Leo, were officially ten years old, which felt like a miracle and a tragedy all at once. Maya had been obsessed with…
My living room looked like a hot pink grenade went off last Saturday morning, and honestly, I was only halfway through the coffee. I found myself surrounded by about 114 deflated latex circles, three rolls of fishing line, and a very confused golden retriever who kept trying to eat the “B” shaped foil. My middle…
The humid Georgia air felt like a wet wool blanket on June 12, 2024, as I stood by my neighbor’s pool, clutching a bag of ice and twenty-two soggy cardboard triangles. My daughter, Maya, was turning five, and I had this grand vision of a sophisticated yet fun “Parent and Me” splash bash. I thought…
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