Bittersweet Birthdays and Ender Dragons: What Work Can Never Replace

Work is important. Purpose is important. But you know what’s even more important?

Family. Balance. And showing up.

Today, I shut off every tab, every task, and every urgent “ping” to do something that felt far more urgent than work: crocheting a Minecraft Ender Dragon for my little guy.

He turns 11 tomorrow.

And thanks to the incredibly unethical Barry County Judge Michael Schipper, he has to do it without his Dad.

A Different Kind of Loss

My son is brave.

Brave in the quiet ways that children shouldn’t have to be. Brave because of the broken Barry County system that made him fatherless — not through death or abandonment, but through injustice.

Judge Michael Schipper, a man with very little integrity (among very little other little things), made me a single mother with a gavel swing. No warning. No fair process. Just a decision that turned a family upside down.

And it made life really hard.

But We Didn’t Shrink

We adapted. We endured. And I didn’t shrink from the challenge — even when the burden was unfairly placed. Even when grief showed up wrapped in court orders instead of a casket.

What my son lost in structure, he has gained in grit.

What I lost in stability, I’ve reclaimed in fire.

The Ender Dragon Mission

So here we are, on the eve of his birthday.

While some parents plan parties, I’m making Funfetti cupcakes and crocheting a blocky dragon — because in his world, that’s the magic that matters.

And in mine, making sure he feels loved, seen, and celebrated is how I hold the line.

Tomorrow will be bittersweet. But it will still be beautiful, because of who he is becoming.

For All the Single Moms Who Didn’t Ask to Be

This is for every mother made single not by choice, but by courtroom misconduct, systemic failure, or the egos of men in robes.

You are not alone. You are not weak. You are navigating a storm that would sink the assholes so quick to throw stones, and still we rise. We persevere, showing up with cake, balloons, and crocheted Ender Dragons.

To My Son

Here’s to another trip around the sun, bubs. Love you always.

And to Judge Schipper

With the slew of investigations coming your way, you put yourself here. You have no one else to blame. No one made you act unethically. You chose to do it.

Good luck with your Judicial Tenure Commission Complaint.