Leo’s seventh birthday was a literal web of chaos. The humidity in Austin on October 12, 2025, was sitting at a thick 85 percent, which is basically like trying to host a birthday party inside a giant, lukewarm bowl of soup. My nephew Leo is obsessed with Peter Parker. Not the “cool, brooding” movie version,…
The humidity in Atlanta on June 12, 2024, was thick enough to chew. I stood in my backyard at 7:15 AM, clutching a lukewarm coffee and staring at a pile of play sand that I’d dumped onto my patio. My son, Leo, was turning six, and he’d spent the last six months informing me that…
Eighteen five-year-olds in a living room during a Houston humidity spike is a recipe for disaster. My living room smelled like damp socks and grape juice last Saturday. I sat on my floral sofa, clutching a lukewarm coffee, watching Lily and Jax argue over who got to be the “real” Elsa. This was my niece’s…
Houston humidity is the absolute natural enemy of a perfectly curated birthday aesthetic, and I learned that the hard way on March 12, 2024. My niece Lily was turning five, and she has this specific, unwavering devotion to Wayfinding that only a preschooler can maintain. Eleven kids were descending on my small living room, and…
The sun beat down on our East Austin bungalow last November 14th like it had a personal vendetta against my overpriced charcuterie board. I was sweating through my linen jumpsuit, frantically trying to arrange thirty-two tiny succulent building sets before my husband Leo’s 30th birthday guests arrived. We weren’t doing the standard brewery crawl or…
My classroom floor still has a faint green rectangular stain from a spray paint mishap last March, and quite frankly, it’s a badge of honor. I spent three hours in the blistering Houston humidity on my driveway trying to turn 16 Amazon boxes into Steve and Alex heads for Leo’s 6th birthday. It was March…
My kitchen table in Chicago currently looks like a cattle ranch exploded on it. There are stray pieces of hay stuck to my sweater, and my twins, Leo and Maya, are arguing over who gets the “coolest” sheriff badge. We are forty-eight hours away from their 12th birthday bash. People told me that once they…
Twelve-year-olds are a mystery. Last week, my daughter Maya decided her birthday theme had to be Cocomelon. Yes, the show for toddlers. She called it “ironic chic,” but as a dad in Denver who spent a decade reviewing consumer products for safety, I just saw a logistical nightmare. I had exactly fifty-eight dollars to make…
Austin humidity is no joke, but neither is an eight-year-old with a Pinterest board and a dream of being a Victorian socialite. My niece Sophie looked at me last month with that terrifyingly focused gaze and declared she wanted a tea party, specifically the “fancy kind with big hats.” As a self-proclaimed party enthusiast and…
The humidity in Houston during May is enough to make any elementary school teacher want to hide in the supply closet with a bag of frozen peas, but my second graders had other plans. We were finishing up our “Kindness Unit” at Highland Elementary, and I decided we weren’t just going to color worksheets. We…
