Guest Post: Birthday Traditions

Meet Stephanie Nyland, mother of recently turned 2-year-old Henry and wife to a video production professor, Rob. The family is from Seattle, Washington. It's there where they met, fell in love and had their darling little boy. Stephanie is not only raising her little one, but works as a speech therapist. Plus, they are expecting a new addition to the family, a little girl expected to arrive this summer. Enjoy her take on making the decision to start traditions in your family for birthdays or any special occasion!

I made a big deal of Henry's birthday this year. Not because I thought he would care (he's two and the only thing he knows about birthdays is that cake is involved) and not because I wanted to throw a super cute themed party (although I do understand that is a lot of fun for a lot of moms). It was because I'm actually not that into birthdays. Or celebrations in general. I'm kind of a hum-bug when it comes to holidays and celebrations, decorating and dressing-up, for example, are not my thing. Lately I've been thinking a lot about how I want to change that a bit, for my kids' sakes. But I won't go into that...

I'll just get right into how I made a big deal of Henry's birthday this year. I had seen some ideas about celebrating the entire week surrounding (or leading up to) your child's birthday and that sounded like a tradition I wanted to start. By the way, starting traditions is so strange - the traditions you have as a kid never seemed to have a "start," they just always were. But when you have your own family you have to make conscious decisions about traditions and it can feel a little forced (or maybe that's the hum-bug in me talking). But I think despite that, you just have to go for it, no matter how unnatural it may feel.

To get started, I made a short list of simple activities that are Henry's favorites, designated which days we'd do them, then had him help me make a paper chain. Each day we ripped off the chain for that day and talked about what we were going to do. Some plans changed, but because he's two he didn't know any better, and some activities are always part of our weekly routine, but because I know he enjoys them, I included them on the chain. And, of course, the actual birthday celebrations (two, one for each side of the family) were included. Here are some of the things we did:

• Monday: a special family night of playing basketball at the church with friends
• Tuesday: children's museum (this changed to playing at Grandma's house while I sewed), seeing fish at the doctor's office (he had his 2 year check-up), playdate with his buddy (because I had a doctor's appt)
• Wednesday: playdate with his buddy, hang out with his cousin's house (because I had a dentist appt)
• Thursday (his birthday!): watch his birth video, hang out with his cousin (because I watch him on Thursdays), eat Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes, birthday cake and swimming with family and friends
• Friday: play at his cousin's house (because I work on Fridays), sleep at Grandma and Grandpa's house
• Saturday: pizza and birthday cake and Chuck E. Cheese (an arcade-type place) with family

In the end, nothing super exciting, other than his two birthday celebrations. Those were pretty fun and included cute cakes, but it gave me a chance to really focus on him on his birthday week. It turned out that I loved putting all that emphasis on the day he came into the world and into our family. Right now it works really well for us to celebrate all week and stretch it out because we have two families close to help us celebrate and they aren't close enough to each other that we can have just one celebration. I also liked that we didn't fill the week with over-the-top activities, but that we worked around the rest of the necessary activities (I think we had four doctor's appts during the week), and that we were flexible when other things came up. I think no matter the age, these are fundamentals for how to make the week-long celebration work.

- Stephanie

The Busy Bodies would love to hear other birthday traditions and celebration ideas! Simple and sweet is often the most memorable and that is why we love Henry's birthday celebration week. If you are interested in sharing an activity, tips or just the love of being a mom on The Busy Bodies, please let me know. Email me at darien.carroll@gmail.com. I hope this space becomes a resource for moms, where we can learn from each other. Thanks Stephanie!