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• Birthday Cake as "Milepost"

  One of my points of pride as a mother is that my daughter has had a homemade, from-scratch birthday cake every year. From her first birthday, when I was concerned she had a dairy allergy so found an egg-free, dairy-free cake recipe that actually tasted pretty good (and was decorated with Cheerios and Cool Whip -- which I hate, its smell, its texture, its taste, its very existence) to last year, when I made her a chocolate frosted chocolate cake with "prinkles" she chose herself, I've dragged out the stand mixer and the baking pans the first weekend in December for three years now. Which I'd feel a hell of a lot better about if my cakes didn’t suck.   Read More... Posted May 08 2008, 05:32 PM by AmyinMotown with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: baking, cooking, new york times, birthdays, birthday cake, cake mix, from scratch

• Pregcellent: I Know When You'll Give Birth

  Okay, maybe I don't know exactly. And your due dates might indicate I'm full of it. But it turns out, there are trends and statistical significance and stuff that make it a whole lot easier to bet on birth day/date outcomes. For example, the most common day of the week for giving birth is Tuesday. Who knew? The least common day is Sunday. (My kids were Monday and Sunday -- we're so alternative.)   Read More... Posted May 07 2008, 07:14 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: birthdays, pregcellent, birthdates, common birthdays, common birth months

• When the Surrogate Sticks Around for Birthdays

  Kim Kovacic is a permanent surrogate mother. I say permanent because the Virginia resident continues to have a relationship with the "test tube baby" she carried, Jamie Robyn Thompson, and the girl's parents. As this story from The Washington Post explains, Kovacic has celebrated all 14 of Jamie's birthdays with the family, attended graduations and confirmations, and even babysat for the girl. Read More... Posted May 05 2008, 12:35 PM by Jen Chaney with | with no comments Filed under: birthdays, The Washington Post, test tube babies, unconventional families, surrogate moms

• The Secret to Raising a Pro Baseball Player

  No, no, we're not supposed to project our hopes and dreams onto our kids. But that doesn't mean we can't set them up for potential success! If it's a major league baseball player you want, here's what you need to do. (By the way, if the kid is already born, there's a one in 12 chance it's already too late to get involved).   Read More... Posted Apr 16 2008, 05:08 PM by Madeline Holler with | with no comments Filed under: sports, birthdays, kids and sports, age cutoffs, little league, birthdates, due dates, pro baseball player

• Chuck E. Cheese Is Hotbed of Crime

  So what exactly is it about Chuck E. Cheese, um, entertainment centers that inspires violence and crime? Perhaps it's the infernal noise of fifty video games beeping wildly. Maybe it's the fact that there's a giant mouse walking around and everyone pretends that's normal, just like they do at Disneyland--and someday I'll tell you about the time the guy in the mouse costume actually groped me. It could be the animotronic creatures that line the walls, punctuating the din with even noisier singing and clacking (though to be honest, I don't even know if they have those animals anymore, this is a childhood memory we are mining here.) Could be the wretched pizza, the sticky floors, the crying and the ultimate frustraton that is skeeball. What the hell am I talking about? Well... Read More... Posted Apr 11 2008, 04:01 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: entertainment, activities, parents, crime, violence, police, birthdays, party, arrest, restaurant, Chuck E. Cheese, fight, brawl

• Happy Birthday kids. Have some carrots.

  Megan Bowden of the Oteha Valley primary school has issued a decree: no more cake. With a large number of kids having birthdays in September and October, every day was a birthday cake day, and that's just too damn much cake! Read More... Posted Apr 07 2008, 01:00 PM by Brett Singer with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: school, birthdays, principal, new zealand, cake, elementary school, snacks, rules, birthday cake, treats, ministry of education

• 100 years old, 100 miles per hour

  I used to say that if I lived to be 100, I hope I can at least feed myself. But Gordon Miller has raised the bar by going 100 miles per hour on land and sea for his 100th birthday. Details after the jump. Read More... Posted Apr 05 2008, 03:06 PM by Brett Singer with | with no comments Filed under: parents, birthdays, cool stuff, speed, boat, 100 years old, feel good stories, car

• Two Moms Brawl at Chuck E. Cheese

  You know how it goes: One minute you are hosting a birthday party for your kid, and the next thing you know, you are in a fistfight with another mom. Two mothers are going to court soon over a tussle at a party at Chuck E. Cheese. I'm pretty sure part of the defense strategy will be, "Your Honor, there are mitigating circumstances to consider. After all, my client was at Chuck E. Cheese, and I doubt anyone has spent time there and not wanted to strike someone." Of course, it all started over a video game... Read More... Posted Mar 03 2008, 06:02 PM by Kelly Mills with | with no comments Filed under: children, kids, video games, crime, moms, violence, parents behaving badly, birthdays, words, party, sharing, fight, court, brawl, chuck e cheese, fistfight

• Kitchenista: The Kinda Cupcake

  On the one hand I get why, sometime around Valentine's Day, the director of my daughter's preschool started discouraging parents from sending cupcakes to school for kids' birthdays. Between Halloween and Valentine's Day there were loads of sugary holidays. If you average in the birthdays, that's minimally once a week when the next generation of obese Americans was loading up on crap. So the do-gooder in me whole-heartedly agreed with the director's request. But as an adult with unresolved birthday issues -- my late May birthday was an annual competition between Memorial Day, weekends, and the last day of school -- I wanted to tell her to shut up, we're bringing cupcakes.   Read More... Posted Mar 03 2008, 04:32 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: birthdays, kitchenista, banana bread, kinda cupcake, healthy snacks, cupcake

• Three Kids, Different Ages, Same Birthday, Same Family

  My birthday is one week after my sister's. Both of my kids had the same due date, but the younger one's birthday is eight days after her sister's. My niece and her great-grandma share a birthday. So I'm not all that impressed by kids of the same family who were born years apart on the same day. After all, there's a 1 in 365 chance any two people share the same birthday, right? Still, even I can see there's something kind of kooky about this British family:  Read More... Posted Feb 25 2008, 05:35 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: birthdays, c-section, U.K., birthday, due date, shared birthdays

• Parents Spent $3,000 On The Kid's First Birthday Party

  A while ago the parenting story of the day was paring down parties for kids, and how these celebrations should be small and cost nothing and we should all forgo the party favors. There was even an online movement called Birthdays Without Pressure, for people who were kinda grossed out by the excesses of it all, and the word on the street was that big parties had more to do with competitive parents than the kids. At the time, I came out in defense of the lavish affair. However, I'm here to tell you I do have my limits, and they are definitely shy of this one-year-old's birthday.  How do you spend that much on a kid birthday? These parents did it by renting a room at a country club...   Read More... Posted Feb 25 2008, 04:35 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: parents, parties, toddlers, money, birthdays without pressure, birthdays, expensive, party, magician, one year old, pony rides

• Fun Birthdays Despite Recession

  In all this talk about economic downturns and recessions or "recessions" and whatnot, politicians are overlooking one very important thing when calculating rebates and tax cuts and interest rates freezes and economic stimulation: what the hell is a parent to do about birthday parties? Listen, party-planning expert Lisa Kothari, author of Dear Peppers and Pollywogs...What Parents Want to Know About Planning Their Kids' Parties knows your pain and she wants to help out with her three-part series on recession-proof children's birthday parties. Thank God, because I was worried we'd have to leave it up to our kids this year to create their own fun.   Read More... Posted Jan 24 2008, 05:36 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: parties, birthday parties, birthdays without pressure, peanut butter, birthdays, party planning, baby cake, cake, party, Birththdays without Pressure, birthday party, party hat, birthday, cake decorations, recession, angel food cake

• Juggling Holidays and Birthdays

  In my little circle of family and close friends, there are, no kidding, six birthdays and two anniversaries between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. So, although my own birthday falls in June, I've long been sensitive to the potential problems of holiday birthdays even before my daughter (due at Thanksgiving, born a week late) came along. Of course, I found this article interesting. This mom actually cancelled Hanukkah (or, I am assuming, at last the gift giving portion thereof) when her son, whose birthday falls right in the middle of it, got a little gift-grabby. Read More... Posted Dec 08 2007, 02:10 PM by AmyinMotown with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: christmas, holidays, birthdays, thanksgiving, Hanukkah

• Note To Parents: No Embarassment Or Strippers For Birthdays, 'Kay?

  I have never understood the whole birthday-as-opportunity-for-humiliation thing. Why would you want to commemorate someone's special day by making them feel like an ass? It's part of my stance against birthday spankings. And I even have a recurring nightmare about being in a restaurant and having the waitstaff come out and put a funny hat on my head and then everyone singing...bleugh. So I'm less sympathetic about this story last week when one mom wanted to playfully embarass her son on his 16th birthday and the whole thing went terribly awry in a naked lady/public humiliation kind of way. The mom says she contacted a party entertainment company and hired a gorilla to show up in her son's drama class to chase him around on his birthday. Somehow the booking got mixed up... Read More... Posted Nov 12 2007, 02:31 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Embarassing Your Kids, schools, birthdays, classroom, sweet 16, strippers, humiliation

• Spousal Birthday Gifts for Yourself

  Let's face it -- you're the one doing the dishes, you're the one cleaning up the messes and wiping all the asses, so when it comes time for your spouse's birthday, indulge yourself. Throw yourself a happy birthday party. Or at least buy a really cool present that can easily go both ways. Read More... Posted Aug 13 2007, 09:08 AM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with no comments Filed under: birthday parties, birthdays without pressure, birthdays, birthday

• Birthday Party Excess (Again!)

  These stories of over-the-top kids' birthday parties are becoming so commonplace in the media now that I'm actually starting to think some of them sound like great ideas. Not the ones that cost tens of thousands of dollars where you have to book the Four Seasons ballroom six months in advance, but the kind discussed in this article, where you take your kids to a venue and let 'em go at it, whatever "it" happens to be. These parties are like Gymboree or Build-a-Bear parties taken to the next level, and it's a level that is somehow not as repulsive to me (I hate clowns and I hate stuffed animals). I could totally go for a dress-up party where my kids and their friends spend a couple hours tarting themselves up with sparkly eyeshadow and then dance around in fairy wings, especially if it didn't require me to provide the cold cream and mirror space. I can see having a build-your-own-pizza party, or a tea party in a fancy hotel. Well, I can almost see it. What I really like about what I'm reading here is that some of the parties were just really creative at-home parties, like a tractor-themed party with a real machine for climbing and pretending. Planned by professionals of course, which we have already established is kind of bizarre for a little kids' party, but there's no reason you couldn't come up with this stuff yourself. But then you're going to have to clean it up yourself when the fairy dust and tea-sandwich crumbs settle. Posted Jun 13 2007, 03:29 PM by Patti with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: parties, birthday parties, children's parties, birthdays, birthday party

• Babble Talk: Birthday Parties Gone Wild

  Baby tigers, stretch limos, a trip to the recording studio to cut a record.  These are just some of the extravagant things that Asra Q. Nomani did for her son's birthday parties, all before the age of 5. In a recent Babble essay, Nomani highlights the crazy, competitive world of birthday parties where parents get trapped in a cycle of trying to out-do the previous year's party. She discovers there is help for people like her in the form of an organization called Birthdays Without Pressure, a group of "recovering over-the-top party throwers and those disgusted by party excess." Nomani's turning point was attending a party where the parents served grilled cheese sandwiches and everyone, including the parents, were relaxed and having a great time.  Personally, I'm a fan of the low-key/low-cost party. In my experience nothing makes a birthday party more fun than hot dogs or pizza, a passel of kids in their own dress-up garb, and beer. Lots and lots of beer. (For the parents, that is.) See glimpses of yourself in Nomani?  Check out her article and know you aren't alone. Posted Apr 27 2007, 02:02 PM by Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: birthday parties, birthdays, Birththdays without Pressure, Asra Q. Nomani

• Pro Party Planner for a Three-Year-Old?

  Emmeline turned 1 on Monday -- and our party planning consisted of baking cupcakes, stripping her naked and letting her go to town on the kitchen floor. It took a solid hour to clean up, but the sight of a sugar-coated pastel baby was more than worth it. (Note to kid: Sprinkles don't go in your lady business.) But the first birthday is easy. It's more for the parents anway -- at least that's what everyone told us. But now, I'm starting to get a little freaked out. You see, I just read a post on Dana's Internet mother board about a mom who is looking for a party planner ... for her 3-year-old. A party planner? Is that where birthdays are headed? How difficult is it to pin the tail on Dora or beat the crap out of pinata Sponge Bob? Are 3-year-olds that demanding nowadays, or are parents just that overworked? Read More... Posted Apr 11 2007, 04:23 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: kids, Baby Trend, birthday parties, birthdays without pressure, birthdays, kids parties

• Nine Thousand Prisoners Released from Jail to Celebrate Birth of Moroccan Princess

  In honor of the recent birth of his daughter, Princess Lalla Khadija, King Mohammed VI of Morocco has pardoned 9,000 prisoners and commuted 24,000 sentences. Um. Yeah. Cuz the first thing I think of whenever I see a newborn is, "Gosh, I wish robbers, rapists, and murderers could share in this joy!" This isn't the first time Moroccan jails have been emptied of their criminal contents for baby-related happenings. Seven thousand law-breakers were pardoned when little Princess Lalla's older brother was circumcized four years ago. It would suck to be the citizens of Morocco right now, but never mind that.  Happy Birthday, baby girl!!!  Posted Mar 05 2007, 03:02 PM by Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) with | with no comments Filed under: birthday parties, birthdays, Morocco

• Simple Birthday Parties at Home: Are There Any Other Kind?

  Unlike many of my fellow bloggers, I'm not the least bit crafty, domestic, or skilled around the house.  So when people have "ideas" about fun birthday parties for kids, it literally does not compute.  Kids like cake and balloons and songs.  What wouldn't they like about birthdays and why do they need ponies and clowns and special parties at Chuck E. Cheese to have a good time? It all seems like a bunch of hooey to me.  I mean, my kids wear buckets on their heads and play in cardboard boxes.  I say less is almost always more. However, this sensible article suggests several ways to make throwing birthday parties easier, including limiting the number of guests,  serving pizza, and providing plenty of fun activities to keep the kids busy made me feel less intimidated.  Of course there are also now organizations that helps people host birthday parties with no pressure. But I think Stefania's writes up the best ideas for throwing a simple birthday party.  Basically, she recommends having the party outside in a park, having pizza delivered, and letting the kids run around and have a blast.  She's a genius!  The only catch is if you live in the dreary Pacific NW and your kid's birthday is in the winter.  But I suppose that's what tarps are for. Posted Mar 02 2007, 09:14 AM by Rachael Brownell (Redsy) with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: birthday parties, fun, kids eat glue, birthdays