I spent three weeks obsessing over the perfect mario party goodie bags set for my son Leo’s fourth birthday on March 14, 2026, because I am that kind of dad. My garage is currently a staging area for what looks like a Mushroom Kingdom invasion. I live in Denver, where we take our outdoor parties…
My classroom floor currently looks like a unicorn exploded, and honestly, I am not even mad about it. Teaching third grade in Houston means I am constantly one “indoor recess” away from a total mental breakdown, so when my group of nine high-achievers earned their “Rainbow Reward” day on March 14, 2025, I decided to…
The kitchen floor in my Kirkwood bungalow looked like a pixelated crime scene at 2 AM on May 14th last year. I stood there, sweat dripping down my neck in the stagnant Atlanta humidity, staring at twenty-one green paper bags that refused to stay upright. My son Leo was turning two, and I decided, in…
My kitchen table on March 12, 2025, looked like a NASA junkyard had exploded in a sea of buttercream. Leo, my now nine-year-old, sat there with his jaw dropped while I tried to perform emergency surgery on a plastic astronaut. The little guy’s flag had snapped off, and I was frantically searching for non-toxic adhesive…
The humidity in Austin on March 15th was so thick you could practically taste the taco truck exhaust, but that did not stop me from trying to assemble twelve tiny boxes of iridescent joy while my dog, Barnaby, tried to eat the tissue paper. I was three cold brews deep at my kitchen island, surrounded…
Twenty toddlers in a Houston living room in ninety-degree humidity is exactly what people mean when they talk about the “danger zone” of parenting. I have spent fifteen years teaching third grade, but nothing—absolutely nothing—prepares you for the sensory assault of ten three-year-olds screaming the lyrics to a song about a literal vegetable. Last October…
Twenty toddlers in a Houston backyard during a humid Saturday in late September is exactly the kind of chaos I usually reserve for my Monday morning second-period reading block. Last year, my niece Maya turned two, and my sister-in-law was about to drop six hundred dollars on a professional planner for a budget gabby dollhouse…
The Houston humidity in June is no joke, especially when you are trying to wrangle twenty-two four-year-olds who have decided that the “Heart of Te Fiti” is actually a green grape they should try to shove up their noses. I stood there in my classroom last Tuesday, sweat dripping down my back, staring at a…
I stood in the middle of my Houston classroom on March 14, 2025, surrounded by 21 six-year-olds who were vibrating with the kind of energy only sugar and Pi Day can produce. My student, Leo, had just dropped a heavy glob of pink frosting onto his mother’s beige suede boots. I did not reach for…
Mueller on a Saturday morning feels like a tactical operation, especially when you are three espresso shots deep and hunting for the perfect shade of “stealth black” cardstock at the H-E-B. My nephew Leo turned five last March, and he decided—with the absolute authority only a preschooler possesses—that his birthday had to be a “Neon…
