My living room looked like a red and blue explosion happened inside a spaghetti factory, and for a split second, I actually thought the ceiling might collapse under the weight of three rolls of crepe paper. It was May 14, 2025, a Tuesday that felt like a marathon, and my son Leo was turning nine….
Sweat dripped down my forehead as I wrestled with a stubborn roll of twine on the morning of March 12, 2024. Austin was already hitting eighty-five degrees, and the humidity felt like a wet wool blanket. My nephew Leo was turning six, and he had spent the last three months insisting that he was actually…
Living in a drafty three-flat in Logan Square with twin ten-year-olds means I have learned to stretch a dollar until it screams. Last March, specifically on Saturday the 14th, my twins Leo and Maya decided they wanted a Wild Kratts creature power party, even though they are arguably getting too old for it. My bank…
My kitchen floor currently feels like a sticky graveyard of red frosting and discarded gold foil, which is pretty much the standard aftermath of a four-year-old’s birthday bash in our house. Last Tuesday, March 12th, my youngest, Leo, turned four, and he is absolutely obsessed with a certain Italian plumber who spends his time jumping…
Snow piled up against the drafty window of our Rogers Park apartment last March 12th as I stared at the chaos of 21 tenth-graders vibrating with sugar-induced energy. Leo and Maya, my twins, had decided that turning ten required a royal celebration, despite the fact that my bank account was currently screaming in protest. I…
Mud everywhere. Giant clumps of wet, Oregon clay tracked across my beige living room rug. That was the immediate aftermath of my middle son Leo’s 7th birthday last May 18th. The party itself was a chaotic blur of twenty sweaty second-graders running passing drills in our suburban Portland backyard while I desperately tried to keep…
The humidity in Houston on June 14, 2025, felt like standing inside a giant, wet sock. I had twelve four-year-olds in my backyard for my nephew Jaxson’s “The Big One” birthday party, and I was sweating through my “Teacher of the Year” t-shirt. My kitchen was a disaster zone of blue frosting and goldfish crackers….
Green frosting on the ceiling. I still don’t know how it got there. It was October 14th, rain pounding relentlessly against our Portland gutters, and my living room looked like a botanical garden had been hit by a freight train. Right in the middle of the mess, little Leo was running laps around the coffee…
Houston humidity is the natural enemy of a perfectly frosted cupcake, and I learned that the hard way on March 12, 2025. It was Leo’s 6th birthday party in my classroom. Room 204 was a literal pressure cooker of twenty-one sweating first graders who had just come in from a 90-degree recess. I stood there,…
My neighbor Dan called me on a Tuesday. “Brayden turns ten on Saturday,” he said. “He wants a Fortnite party. I have no idea what that means.” I told him I’d help. I’m the parent in our Columbus cul-de-sac who researches things obsessively and prints laminated checklists — Dan knows this about me and uses…
