The smell of glitter and stale apple juice is basically my signature scent at this point in the school year. I have spent the last twelve years teaching second grade in Houston, which means I have survived more classroom parties than I have hot summer days. Last March, specifically on Saturday the 14th, I decided…
I stood in the middle of my living room on March 12, 2024, covered in a substance that can only be described as “pixie dust” but felt suspiciously like industrial-grade micro-plastic. My daughter Maya was turning three. I had exactly two hours before twenty toddlers descended upon my small Atlanta backyard, and the center-piece of…
The frosting was still warm when the glitter disaster struck. I stood in my tiny Chicago kitchen last June, staring at a cake that looked more like a construction site than a masterpiece for my twins, Maya and Leo. They were turning three, and I had exactly forty-five minutes before ten toddlers descended upon our…
Zilker Park was still damp from a freak Austin thunderstorm on March 12, 2026, when I realized I had exactly fifty-three dollars to make my niece Chloe’s 12th birthday look like a high-end forest retreat. Sixteen pre-teens were descending upon my backyard in three hours. Most parents in my neighborhood spend five hundred dollars just…
My kitchen floor looked like a unicorn threw up in a car wash on the morning of June 12, 2025. Teal glitter was everywhere. It was in the cracks of the hardwood, in my coffee, and somehow stuck to the ears of my dog, Barnaby. This was the reality of prepping for Maya and Leo’s…
Twenty-two five-year-olds in one room is a recipe for a headache or a very loud prehistoric stampede. Last Tuesday, my classroom smelled like apple juice and wet construction paper because we were celebrating Leo’s fifth birthday. I have taught kindergarten in Houston for fifteen years, so I know exactly what happens when the sugar hits….
I am currently staring at a singular, lonely blue sequin stuck to the bottom of my coffee mug, which is a pretty accurate summary of my life right now in suburban Portland. My middle child, Sophie, who is seven and obsessed with everything icy, decided her birthday needed to be a “winter wonderland” despite it…
The wind off Lake Michigan nearly took out my carefully curated pink streamers before the first guest even arrived at Humboldt Park last June. It was a humid Saturday afternoon, the kind where your hair frizzes instantly, and I was sweating through my favorite “Mom Mode” t-shirt while trying to weigh down sixteen plastic cups…
Austin, TX is a literal oven in August. I was sweating through my linen jumpsuit trying to tie 15 yellow balloons to blue gift bags on my back deck while my Goldendoodle, Benson, tried to eat the “Medkit” labels I’d just printed. My nephew Leo was turning two, and my sister-in-law decided on a “Two-ttles…
Last April, specifically on the rainy Saturday of April 12, 2025, I found myself standing in the middle of my kitchen in suburban Portland, surrounded by what looked like a robotic explosion. My son Leo was turning seven, and he had decided—with the absolute certainty only a first-grader can possess—that his entire life depended on…
