Birthday Party Research Articles

A Perfectly Good Place

A Perfectly Good Place Iris Moulton (bio) The white jutting from the southern Illinois dirt was most likely the bones of his hand. While the grown-ups were upstairs folding towels, and visiting, as they called it, the two sisters crept back down to the basement and opened the sliding glass door. There it was: white and gnarled, just at the base of the black walnut tree. They took a few steps closer, and then several hurried steps back, whining like trapped piglets. They rushed back inside. The younger one began, turning the long plastic tube that controlled the blinds and watching the tree through its blink: “How come Grandpa’s hand is buried under the tree if we buried him this morning?” They stared outside at the ground and at the tree rising from it. Already, in their minds, the grandpa had been sucked up into it and become the leaves and was watching them. “I don’t know,” said the older, finally. “But we have to find out.” They decided they had to tell their very tall cousin what they had found. The younger was sent upstairs, and moments later returned with her. “What are you guys doing?” the cousin asked, popping her hip to the side. Her long legs projected from her shorts like beams of light. “You might want to sit down for this,” the older sister said. “Yeah,” said the younger, pushing the very tall cousin’s stomach lightly in a suggestion that she should choose the top of the couch. “What?” the cousin asked again. “We think Grandma buried Grandpa in the yard.” “Yeah. We found his hand.” The cousin looked first at the younger, then at the older. Her arms were crossed into more of a squeeze. She looked mad but seemed to change her mind and made a noise like a laugh. “You guys are seriously so weird.” And with that her long insect legs sprang back up the stairs. The only noise left was the whirring dryer. The sisters looked around at [End Page 128] the unmade beds where they had been sleeping since they arrived in town. Cardboard boxes filled with other mysteries bordered the room. A few summers ago, on one of their annual visits to this town and this house, they had found clown costumes in one of these boxes. The mother and aunts said they were from the theatre around the corner where the grandfather acted and directed. The sisters put them on, and so did the tall cousin. They were allowed to wear makeup that day only if it looked like a clown’s, and they’d gone on a walk around the neighborhood. The sisters danced and mimed their way along the sidewalk. The cousin walked with her arms crossed, hoping no one from school would recognize her. “They will never recognize you in a million years!” the older sister promised. “Yeah!” chimed in the younger sister, stepping out of the imaginary driver’s seat of her imaginary ambulance. “You look great.” A neighbor had recognized them and called the grandpa right away to ask if the clowns could perform at her son’s birthday party the next day. The girls rehearsed all night until they perfected the invisible box, the faulty stretcher, and how to fall down without getting hurt. They were asked to perform for almost forty-five minutes, but they didn’t have enough material to fill that time, so they just kept starting over until an adult said it was time for cake. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” the older one said, leading the younger up the stairs, and softening into a whisper. “Why would Grandpa just suddenly die?” The younger sister looked back to the glass doors. “Yeah, and how?” On this drive to the Midwest, the older sister had watched the mother’s face in the passenger side mirror. The mother’s eyes were red, but the color was lost to the glass. The mother watched the landscape flattening into prairie. Sometimes she would fall asleep to the lull of the car. When the older sister checked the mirror again she would see the mother, head tilted...

Transnational Christmas in Mona J. Hoel’s ‘Dogme 95’ film Cabin Fever

Abstract This article examines how Mona J. Hoel activates Christmas and the cabin – two mainstays of Norwegian identity – in her 2000 ‘Dogme 95’ film Når nettene blir lange/Cabin Fever in order to comment upon the increasingly complex and transnational nature of contemporary society, where people move and marry freely across international borders. The author argues that the movie functions as an allegory in which a precariously transnational family event can be read as a stand-in for the small nation of Norway, struggling to maintain its self-image and identity in a period of increasing globalization. The progression of the action in the film follows a pattern similar to that of Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen/The Celebration (1998) – a film that has also been read as a contemporary national allegory – but the substitution of Christmas for a birthday party and a cabin for a hotel directs attention to and questions a specifically Norwegian cultural identity.

Maternal visibility at the commodity frontier: Weaving love into birthday party consumption

Children's birthday parties are celebrations that offer a means to understand consumption values surrounding motherhood that can remain understated or even taken for granted. Mother's consumption activities and the involvement of their child can reveal their management of the commodity frontier. As the marketplace increasingly provides goods and services to support mothers and parenting, the extent to which this is acceptable is a source of anxiety for the enactment of ‘good’ mothering in some social groups. The maternal visibility that birthday parties demand adds further strain. Building from previous work that acknowledges mothers to be the organisers of family celebrations and work that identifies ideologies of motherhood as important in the enactment, or performance, of mothering, this study examined mother–child consumption and the management of the commodity frontier in the preparation and hosting of young children's birthday parties. The findings show that mothers could publicly demonstrate their intimate knowledge and care for their child by personalising the birthday party through the gift of their time and effort to create a ‘homemade’ event. Although overt commercialisation was managed, do-it-yourself understates the need to consume the constituent elements of the celebration. Instead mothers' abiding care was woven into the party to express something special for the child without material excess. Effortful work, time and emotional energy were all understated in the creation of a memorable event for the child. The underpinning rationalisation asserted that the fun, innocent simplicity of childhood was an imperative. The involvement of the child in consumption for the party allowed the mother to gauge the child's pleasure, teach values and manage the commodity frontier.

Classroom Parties in US Elementary Schools: The Potential for Policies to Reduce Student Exposure to Sugary Foods and Beverages

To examine associations among school, district, and state policies regarding classroom birthday and holiday parties. School-level policies assessed by survey during the 2009-2011 school years, with collection of corresponding district policies and state laws. United States public elementary schools. Surveys from 1,204 schools (response rate, 60.9%). Prevalence of school-wide restrictions on sugary items served during parties. Predictor variables included district policy and state law. Multivariate logistic regressions to examine associations between school-level restrictions (outcome) and district policies and state laws, controlling for demographics and school year. Approximately one half of schools discouraged or prohibited sugary items during parties, or did not allow parties. Schools with a district policy and state law were 2.5 times more likely to restrict sweet items at parties than were schools with no corresponding policy or law. School-level limits were more common where policy and law addressed specific nutritional aspects of foods and beverages served in classroom parties (odds ratios, > 2.0; P < .001). Prohibitions on sugary party fare were uncommon at all levels. Even though most policies were framed as recommendations rather than requirements, policy and law were associated with increased school-level restrictions, which demonstrates the value of policy.

Infants at familial risk for depression show a distinct pattern of cortisol response to experimental challenge

BackgroundThe aim of the study was to examine the link between maternal depression and the infant's HPA axis functioning in relation to a sequence of emotional challenges at 12 months postpartum, while controlling for maternal anxiety disorder and general sociodemographic risk. MethodTwo hundred and fifty-seven infants whose mothers had been interviewed in pregnancy, as part of a prospective longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of U.K. families, were individually tested in the laboratory and then observed during a simulated birthday party scenario. Three cortisol samples were taken over the course of 1½h of afternoon testing. ResultsThe cortisol levels of infants whose mothers had no history of depression decreased significantly after individual testing, and rose again significantly in response to the birthday party challenge. In contrast, infants whose mothers had been diagnosed with depression before conception, during pregnancy or in the first 6 months postpartum showed no decrease from the initially elevated levels at entry to the laboratory and a less marked increase in response to the party. LimitationsThe study does not employ a traditional stress paradigm; instead it introduces a novel design to assess HPA axis functioning in relation to everyday emotional challenges. ConclusionsThe findings suggest that altered responses to mildly challenging events in infancy may be a marker for infants’ familial risk for depressive illness.

Tears of Joy in India

Though myfifth birthday party was a long time ago, I can still clearly see scene: my mother's elderly parents had prepared a birthday cake with candles for me. It sat majestically on their white formica kitchen table. My frail grandfather turned off fluorescent light-fixture overhead and gently asked me to blow out thecandles. I did so as they sang Happy Birthday to You, and when grandfather turned bright lighting back on, I suddenly noticed they both were crying. Of course at that tender age, I associated tears only with pain, and I asked what was wrong. I think it was my grandmother who smiled and replied, Nothing is wrong. When you are older, you'll understand. -EdwardHoffmanAlthough tears of joy have been depicted in religious and literary sources in varied countries for centuries, this powerful human phenomenon has been almost completely overlooked by modem psychology. To explain why this situation has prevailed lies outside scope of this article. But with growth of scientific interest in individual flourishing and well-being, positive emotions including tears of joy are gaining their rightful attention by researchers.The literary viewJohann Wolfgang von Goethe was a precocious who learned Greek, Latin, French and Italian by age of eight. But it was not until his mid-twenties that he astonished Western literary world with appearance of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, in 1774 (Goethe, 1774/2009). Written as a quasi-autobiography, it vividly portrayed its romantic hero as prone to outbursts of crying in his passion for life.Oh, if only I could fall on your neck and describe with a thousand joyous tears all emotions that are storming in my heart, Werther writes exuberantly about his romantic ardor for Lotte to his friend Wilhelm. Lotte allows Werther the comfort of crying {his} eyes out over her hand, and as he recounts such amorous scenes to Wilhelm, Werther again begins weeping like a child in recalling his romantic bliss.Goethe's fascination with tears of joy inspired later European and American writers, including luminaries like William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens in England, and masterful Edgar Allen Poe in United States. In an intriguing essay called The Poetic Principle, Poe (1850/2012) affirmed that aesthetics-specifically, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, and especially music, all possess formidable power to make people cry. But what causes this phenomenon? In Poe's view, our sense of beautiful is not only innate, but linked vitally to human longing for transcendent:When by poetry or music we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then.. .not excess of pleasure, but from our inability to grasp those divine and rapturous joys of which poetry or music gives us only brief and indeterminate glimpses. That is, Poe was suggesting that aesthetics, particularly music, gives us a heightened awareness of gap between most wondrous dimensions of human experience and our mundane daily life, and that this awareness causes us to cry.Of course, literary references to tears of joy date much earlier than Goethe. The Mahabharata, Sanskrit epic of ancient India, recounts how Pritha heard such grateful voices bom aloft unto sky, milk of love suffused her bosom, tear of joy was in her eye. (Mahabharata, 1899/2013). In The Illiad, Greek poet Homer nearly 3,000 years ago depicted Odysseus as crying in pleasure when bard Demodocus recounts story of Trojan horse, despite Odysseus' pain in remembering lost comrades and lost time. Later, first-century Greek elegists like Virgil and Propertius celebrated tears as signs of romantic fervor that could bring lovers close together. In Hebrew Bible, tears of joy appear in a variety of narratives, such as when Joseph dreamer is reunited with his beloved brother Benjamin after many years, and when ancient Hebrews, released from Babylonian captivity, witness rebuilding of their sacred temple in Jerusalem. …

Development of First Birthday Party Wear Design for Female Infant

Development of First Birthday Party Wear Design for Female Infant

Facilitating Maltreated Children's Use of Emotional Language.

This study examined the effects of rapport (emotional, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD]) and prompt type (what-next, cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think) on one hundred forty-two 4-9-year-old maltreated children's spontaneous and prompted emotional language. Children in the emotional-rapport condition narrated the last time they felt good and the last time they felt bad on the playground. Children in the NICHD-rapport condition narrated their last birthday party and what happened yesterday. Following rapport, all children were presented a series of story stems about positive and negative situations. Emotional-rapport minimally affected children's use of emotional language. Cued-emotion prompts were most productive in eliciting emotional language. Overall, there were few effects because of age. Children often produced less emotional language when describing negative events, particularly with respect to their spontaneous utterances, suggesting reluctance. These differences largely disappeared when children were asked additional questions, particularly cued-emotion questions. The results offer support for cued-emotion prompts as a means of increasing maltreated children's use of emotional language.

Social contexts and the occurrence of episodic heavy drinking

Piontek, D., Kraus, L., &amp; Rist F. (2013). Social contexts and the occurrence of episodic heavy drinking. International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 2(2), 45-52. doi: 10.7895/ijadr.v2i2.106 (http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v2i2.106)Aims: This study aims to investigate the influence of social context variables on Episodic Heavy Drinking (EHD) among young adults. It will assess (a) whether EHD is predicted by characteristics of the specific drinking situation and drinking motives, and (b) whether the influence of drinking motives is moderated by public versus private drinking.Design/Setting: Data were collected by means of an online survey conducted at the University of Münster (Germany) in December 2008.Participants: The analytical sample consisted of 1,638 students.Instruments: Information was collected on socio-demographics, habitual drinking behavior (beverage-specific quantity and frequency within the past 30 days, EHD, drunkenness), and drinking motives (Drinking Motive Questionnaire Revised, DMQ-R). Moreover, participants described a recent drinking situation (beverage-specific quantity, drunkenness) as well as the social context related to this situation (time, place, people present, other substances used). Multivariate regression analyses were used to test the influence of context variables and their interaction with drinking motives.Findings: Drinking at a birthday or special party, during the weekend, or in a group where many people were drunk and playing drinking games increased the risk of EHD. Social and enhancement motives were associated with a higher risk for EHD, whereas conformity motives had a protective effect on heavy drinking. The effect of conformity motives was only present in public drinking situations.Conclusions: Drinking in young people is a social phenomenon related to situational influences as well as individual characteristics. In addition, there seems to be situational moderation of the impact of specific drinking motives.

Hydroformylation’s Diamond Jubilee

Everybody likes a birthday celebration. Not always the part about growing older, but the part about getting better. The hydroformylation reaction is a good example of improvement with age. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the discovery of this important industrial catalytic process for producing aldehydes. The aldehydes serve as chemical intermediates for making products as varied as detergents, paints, and even automobile windshields. Rather than retiring the process and putting it out to pasture, chemical companies are keeping hydroformylation busy at work, and finding new applications to boot—a little extra icing on the cake. Hydroformylation is not the sexiest chemistry when it comes right down to it, but it’s essential to today’s society, observed George G. Stanley, a chemistry professor and hydroformylation expert at Louisiana State University. Stanley was a coorganizer of a hydroformylation birthday party symposium sponsored by the Division of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry at the ...

The Fabric of Friendship: Aso· Ebì and the Moral Economy of Amity in Nigeria

In this article, I seek to problematize prevailing views of what is known as aso. ebì in Nigeria, which places emphasis on solidarity and conviviality. In its most common import, aso. ebì refers to uniformed solidarity dressing worn by friends and family members to distinguish themselves from the rest during important social events such as weddings, street parties, birthday parties, among others. Aso· ebì is both well-known among the Yoruba and other groups in Nigeria and even beyond, but has received little of the interpretive scrutiny that it deserves in academic scholarship. This article reveals both the prescription and limitations of the moral economy in which aso. ebì is produced and consumed. The article shows that aso. ebì serves as a specific social currency that mediates two contradictory logics of gift-giving and commodification. By challenging the moral economy of intimacy, I demonstrate how aso. ebì is ‘offered’ by celebrants ‘for sale’ as a gesture of friendship and imminent commensality, yet the costs of refusal to buy the aso. ebì removes the guests altogether from the cycle of counter-gifts/payments. By employing Herbert Blumer's theoretical model of espirit de corps, and Marcel Mauss' logic of the gifts, I engage the discourse of solidarity and gift-giving in aso. ebì practice.

‘But that was my idea!’ Problems of Authorship and Validation in Contemporary Practices of Creative Dissent

This article explores the vexed issue of authorship in the production of creative dissent in the current and recent social movements.

Menace and Fear In Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party

Menace and Fear In Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party

Blow, bounce, burst

Viv Hampshire takes a birthday party favourite home and suggests fun ideas for games with balloons with no need to involve a bang, plus art and craft activities that you may not have thought of.

Rear Admiral George Stephen Ritchie, CB, DSC

Rear Admiral George Stephen Ritchie, CB, DSC

Lessons learnt from a birthday party: a Bacillus cereus outbreak, Bari, Italy, January 2012.

Bacillus cereus, a ubiquitous bacterium, can be isolated in various starchy food items, causing both emetic and diarrhoeal disease. The real burden of B. cereus outbreaks is actually poorly known in Italy. We report a B. cereus foodborne outbreak that occurred in a pub in Bari (Italy) on January 22nd 2012 during a birthday party, promptly reported by the pub owner. Between January 22nd and 24th 2012, we performed a retrospective cohort study among the guests of the party to identify risk factors associated with illness. Leftovers of different meals were available for microbiological analysis. Faecal specimens were collected from cases. A total of 12 cases among the 13 customers (attack rate: 92%) were reported. All cases had consumed basmati rice and sweet and sour vegetables (aetiological fraction: 100%). B. cereus was isolated from both basmati rice served during the party and faecal specimens. The close collaboration between the pub owner and the public health officers and the possibility to test food leftovers and stool samples contributed to prevent further cases.

The Birthday Party

The Birthday Party

ISSCC Throws 60th Year Cupcake Birthday Party [Conference Reports

ISSCC Throws 60th Year Cupcake Birthday Party [Conference Reports

‘Surprise’: Outbreak of Campylobacter infection associated with chicken liver pâté at a surprise birthday party, Adelaide, Australia, 2012

In July 2012, an outbreak of Campylobacter infection was investigated by the South Australian Communicable Disease Control Branch and Food Policy and Programs Branch. The initial notification identified illness at a surprise birthday party held at a restaurant on 14 July 2012. The objective of the investigation was to identify the potential source of infection and institute appropriate intervention strategies to prevent further illness. A guest list was obtained and a retrospective cohort study undertaken. A combination of paper-based and telephone questionnaires were used to collect exposure and outcome information. An environmental investigation was conducted by Food Policy and Programs Branch at the implicated premises. All 57 guests completed the questionnaire (100% response rate), and 15 met the case definition. Analysis showed a significant association between illness and consumption of chicken liver pâté (relative risk: 16.7, 95% confidence interval: 2.4-118.6). No other food or beverage served at the party was associated with illness. Three guests submitted stool samples; all were positive for Campylobacter. The environmental investigation identified that the cooking process used in the preparation of chicken liver pâté may have been inconsistent, resulting in some portions not cooked adequately to inactivate potential Campylobacter contamination. Chicken liver products are a known source of Campylobacter infection; therefore, education of food handlers remains a high priority. To better identify outbreaks among the large number of Campylobacter notifications, routine typing of Campylobacter isolates is recommended.

Crush.candy.corpse: What really happened in the forty-first hour? by S. McNicoll

McNicoll, Sylvia. crush.candy.corpse: What really happened in the forty-first hour? Toronto: James Lorimer &amp; Co. Ltd, 2012. Print. Sunny is sixteen and is accused of the manslaughter of a woman with Alzheimer’s whom she had met as a volunteer at a senior’s home. Sunny, named so by her own grandmother, has two pink strips in the front of her hair and an attitude that is not appreciated by the supervisor at Paradise Manor. Sunny's attitude extends to her choice of boyfriend and to ignoring her parents’ request that she not see him after they are caught shoplifting. Sunny's immigrant parents work long hours managing a condo. Occasionally, Sunny helps out at the condo office but she would prefer to work at Salon Teo as a hairdresser. Sunny and her family are also dealing with her mother’s ongoing treatment of a cancer. These issues create the path that leads Sunny to her arrest for manslaughter. Sunny is hurt and frightened; she is confused and defiant as she begins her compulsory forty volunteer hours in order to graduate from high school. Sunny is a realistic and believable protagonist experiencing authentic events and responding with genuine reactions. As we review each visit to Paradise Manor in Sunny’s required English journal and through the events of the trial, we witness the changes that many teens experience as they mature. Her relationships with the victim’s grandson, the victim and the other residents at the Manor change as she progresses through her forty hour sentence. Sunny’s frank opinions, spontaneous reactions and often caring participation in Manor bingo, birthday parties and funerals show us the true nature of her being. Sunny develops a crush and becomes close to a fellow volunteer whose grandmother is a resident at Paradise Manor. This relationship hovers around her while she volunteers and helps her come to terms with the loss of her own grandmother and creates the dilemma of choosing between the boy at the manor and the one she is secretly dating. Some readers like myself may hesitate to select a book about an Alzheimer’s ward, but this reasoning will be unfounded, even when the issue of euthanasia intrudes on the experiences of the two young volunteers. The subject is dealt with honestly and with a genuine understanding of the patients, the families and the caregivers. My own experience with the disease rang true in this story. Even young readers without the experience of living with Alzheimer's disease can relate to and understand Sunny's experiences at Paradise Manor. Without burdening the reader with Canadian justice system legal jargon and procedure, we experience the trial as an equal companion to Sunny's narrative and her journal entries. McNicoll is the author of twenty-seven books and five award-winning titles including Bringing up Beauty. crush.candy.corpse is nominated for the Ontario Library Association Red Maple Award 2013. Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Leslie Holwerda Leslie Holwerda is a teacher-librarian/literacy coach at Lougheed Middle School in Brampton Ontario. She has been a teacher-librarian for ten years and loves reading, selecting and recommending books for readers. She is especially interested in encouraging reluctant readers to pick up and read books no matter the genre, topic or format. The opportunity to motivate readers with e-books and reading apps in the school library is an exciting prospect.