Teaching second grade in Houston means I have seen every possible iteration of a classroom party, but nothing prepared me for the day I decided to bring the country to the suburbs. My classroom, Room 2B, is usually a place of quiet reading and the occasional stray crayon, but last March 12, it transformed into…
I am currently sitting on my living room floor, surrounded by three empty coffee mugs and enough blue and orange crepe paper to wrap a small car. It is exactly 11:42 PM on a Tuesday, and I just finished steaming the wrinkles out of a bluey backdrop for kids that I bought for Maya’s 4th…
Nineteen eleven-year-olds in a single classroom on a humid Houston afternoon is a recipe for a headache, but on May 14, 2025, it was our “Post-STAAR Survival Bash.” My fifth graders had just finished their state testing. They were restless. They were loud. They were ready to vibrate out of their skin. I knew I…
I was staring at my computer screen last Tuesday, desperately trying to find a peppa pig invitation that didn’t look like it was designed in 1998. My youngest, Leo, who just turned 4, was currently running laps around the kitchen island oinking like a manic farm animal. It was pouring outside in typical Portland fashion,…
Leo’s face was literally green. Not “sick” green, but “I just rubbed neon food coloring all over my cheeks because I’m a mad scientist” green. It was March 14, 2025—Pi Day, because of course my eleven-year-old insisted on a science theme for his birthday—and my Portland kitchen looked like a chemistry lab exploded. I had…
The sound of “Wheels on the Bus” has been looping in my small Chicago kitchen for three hours straight, and I think I might actually be losing my mind. My twins, Leo and Maya, are currently obsessed with that giant green watermelon, which means my life is a constant stream of primary colors and high-pitched…
I spent three hours vacuuming my Denver living room last Saturday, and I am still finding tiny iridescent wings lodged in the floorboards. My daughter, Lily, turned three on March 14, and she insisted on a “sparkle forest” theme, which is dad-speak for a fairy party. I did not realize that choosing a fairy party…
Frozen didn’t just take over my house; it took over my soul. I am a single dad in Atlanta. My daughter, Chloe, turned seven last March, and if I had to hear “Let It Go” one more time while scraping blue frosting off the ceiling of our bungalow in Cabbagetown, I was going to lose…
The Austin sun was already starting to bake the grass at Zilker Park on March 12th of last year when I realized I’d made a catastrophic error. My niece, Mia, was turning five, and she had very specific demands for her “Mirabel Moment.” She didn’t just want a cake; she wanted the “Miracle” to descend…
My kitchen looked like a pit stop gone wrong last March 14th. I stood there, clutching a soggy box of pepperoni pizza from the place on 4th Street, watching twenty-two screaming six-year-olds vibrate with the kind of energy usually reserved for professional athletes or toddlers on a sugar bender. It was Sam’s 6th birthday, and…
