The stress starts creeping in about three months before Junior's birthday party.
There's a theme to select, a date to choose, invitations to mail, activities to plan, a cake to bake, supplies to buy and presents to wrap.
Add to that the anxiety of taking care of a child's friends for two hours. Two very long hours.
The good news is that help exists with the click of a mouse.
An online search for theme party suggestions provides countless links to one-stop party planning shops. Some share information for free, while others serve as outlets for invitations, ingredients, favors and paper goods. A few have links to party suppliers. All are chock-full of theme ideas, recipes and activities.
Here are a few to check out:
This site is a parent-run, family resource with arts and crafts, family fun, recipes for kids and parenting tips. It also lists birthday party ideas with themes as a separate category along with cake recipes, planning tips, game ideas, pinata instructions and a Birthday Party Place for decorations, paper goods, favors and more. Most themes are based on popular TV, movie, book and toy characters.
This Domino Sugar site is easy to navigate, with free downloadable birthday theme kits that include instructions, name tags, invitations, gift record sheets, posters, thank-you cards, coloring pages, mailing labels and place cards. Cake and snack recipes, decoration suggestions, games and activity options are available for each of 15 themes: Sports Mania, Slumber Party, Scavenger Hunt, Princess Party, Jungle Jamboree, Hawaiian Luau, Glamour Party, Garden Tea Party, Dinosaur Party, Carnival Party, Campout Party, Bug Party, Baking Party, Backyard Olympics and Arts & Crafts.
A one-stop party supply shop with its own planning page that is less geared to theme planning than other sites. It instead lists theme party packs -- primarily based on popular TV, movie, book and toy characters -- as a category along with decorating tips, recipes, games and e-vites. A party checklist and database of party centers and entertainers are also available.
This parent-run site provides a free forum where parents can share ideas for children's birthday parties. Under Big List of Kid's Parties is conceivably the largest database of themes using popular characters as well as trends and ideas. The alphabetized list contains submitted suggestions.
This site, run by Disney's FamilyFun magazine, opens to show 12 seasonal themes divided into four categories. Now highlighted in the site are Spring birthdays; Lights, Camera, Action! Animal Adventures; and Fantastical Themes. A click on any theme reveals ideas for invitations, decorations, costume props, crafts, games, cake and snack recipes, favors and a party checklist. An archive, Solutions A-Z, lists all past theme ideas. Party Planner is an easy access to themes for all occasions.
This is a parent and family source run by the Kaboose Network with contests, crafts, clip art, reviews, games, downloads and family travel ideas. Under holiday travel, party ideas for e-cards and e-vites, games, themes, printable cards, clip art, online games, cake ideas and recipes are listed. Also available are ideas for every holiday and occasion. Unusual here is a link to other birthday theme sites.
Study: Kids take too much headache medicine
Children with frequent headaches might need to rethink their use of nonprescription medications.
About one in five young headache sufferers overuses the drugs, although the problem frequently isn't discovered until Mom or Dad finds a half-empty bottle of acetaminophen, aspirin or ibuprofen, says Dr. A. David Rothner, a pediatric neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic.
In a study of 680 headache patients ages 6 to 18, Rothner found that 22 percent were overusing nonprescription pain relievers. Overuse is defined as taking at least three doses each week for longer than six weeks. "Some kids were using 22 doses of medicine a week," he said. Many used Excedrin, a combination of acetaminophen, caffeine and aspirin. Children and teenagers shouldn't take aspirin products, except with a doctor's permission, because of the risks of deadly Reye's syndrome.
Rothner said some children have suffered gastrointestinal bleeding after overusing aspirin; others have had kidney failure after taking too much ibuprofen (Advil).
Children, like adults, can develop rebound headaches when they stop the medications, which only perpetuate use of the drugs. In some cases, overuse leads to the transformation of chronic tension headaches into migraines. Rothner recommends that children taking over-the-counter pain relievers more than twice a week see a doctor.
Rothner presented the data June 10 at the 46th annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society.
Childhood obesity is on the rise, study shows
Childhood obesity in the United States looks significantly worse than previously believed, suggests the largest assessment ever of public school students.
The report indicates that 40 percent of students in Arkansas are overweight or at risk of becoming so. Currently, the U.S. government estimates that 30 percent of the nation's kids are overweight or on their way to being too heavy.
Arkansas may have relatively more low-income families, known to have greater obesity levels, but the study's numbers show problems in both low- and high-income communities.
"As more data comes in, I think it's going to be this bad everywhere. I don't think it's isolated to Arkansas," says Carden Johnston, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Children who weigh too much are at a greater risk of becoming heavy adults, are more likely to have low self-esteem and have a greater chance of developing diabetes, high blood pressure and bone and joint problems.
Arkansas is the only state to require that its 450,000 students from kindergarten to 12th grade have their height and weight measured to determine their body mass index, a formula that also considers age and gender.
Among the findings, reported at the Time/ABC News summit on obesity in Williamsburg, Va.:
The state will send letters home to parents this summer. If the child is overweight, parents will be advised to ask their doctor whether it is a problem, Thompson says.
Parents with overweight kids are advised to reduce their children's TV time, increase physical activity and encourage them to drink low-calorie beverages.
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