I am currently standing on a wobbly kitchen chair in my suburban Portland living room, holding a piece of double-sided tape between my teeth while my four-year-old, Leo, screams because the TV remote is “too cold.” It is April 12, and I have exactly nineteen minutes before twelve toddlers and their exhausted parents descend on…
Living in a drafty three-flat in Logan Square with twin three-year-olds means my life is a constant cycle of wiping fingerprints off windows and hunting for lost socks. On March 12, 2024, my twins, Leo and Maya, decided their entire existence revolved around a certain British pig and her obsession with boots. I had exactly…
April 14, 2024, was the day the blue streamers nearly won. The humidity in Houston hit ninety percent by ten in the morning, making the air in my classroom feel like we were actually underwater. I had twenty-two three-year-olds staring at me with that “we haven’t had our nap yet” look. My mission was simple:…
Twenty-four second-graders stood in a jagged circle in my Houston classroom on March 14, 2024, their eyes wider than dinner plates. I held the rope, my biceps screaming, while Leo, a particularly spirited seven-year-old, swung a plastic bat at a cardboard house that refused to die. We were celebrating our spring “Miracle” party, and the…
My living room looked like a recycling center had exploded, but Leo was beaming. Last June 12th, my oldest turned nine, and he decided—with the absolute certainty only a fourth-grader can muster—that he needed a “Cybertronian Celebration.” I stood in our kitchen in suburban Portland, staring at a mountain of Amazon boxes and a Pinterest…
I am currently sitting on my lint-covered sofa in suburban Portland, clutching a lukewarm cup of coffee and trying to scrub blue frosting out of the rug while my four-year-old, Leo, “rescues” the cat for the twelfth time this morning. We just finished his big birthday bash last Tuesday, October 12, 2025, and my living…
My tiny Chicago living room smelled like rainy pavement and cheap vanilla frosting on April 21st when 19 two-year-olds descended upon my sanity. It was the second birthday for my twins, Leo and Maya, and I had exactly $53 left in my “party sanity fund” to make it look like a professional event. We went…
I sat on my living room floor in suburban Atlanta on April 14, 2025, surrounded by 120 uninflated latex spheres that smelled faintly of a tire fire and bitter regret. My son Leo was turning 11. Most kids his age are begging for gaming consoles or trips to virtual reality parks, but Leo has always…
My kitchen counter currently looks like a miniature Serengeti exploded on it because Leo’s fourth birthday is in three days and I am knee-deep in plastic giraffes and green felt. Last year, for his third birthday on March 12, 2025, I learned the hard way that a safari cake topper isn’t just a decoration; it’s…
The rain was pelting my kitchen window in Beaverton last October while I stared at seventeen five-year-olds vibrating with sugar-induced energy. My middle child, Maya, had decided her birthday needed to be a “glow-in-the-dark mystery board game extravaganza,” and I was currently three cups of coffee deep into trying to make that happen without burning…
