Healthy Birthday Traditions? Let Me Put on My Thinking Cap …

In honor of FBG’s Sixth Birthday, each of the FBGs this week sharing their healthy birthday traditions — or lack thereof! Read on for Erin’s b-day take …

When the the FBGs got to chatting about our birthday celebration week, we discussed each of us doing a post on the healthy birthday traditions we have. And I laughed and laughed. Because unlike Jenn and Kristen, when I think of birthdays, I think of two things: margaritas and cake. Sure, I may work out and eat my normal green smoothie for breakfast, but I don’t have any traditions that go beyond the yum-factor that is cake and margaritas. Luckily, Tish was equally befuddled about what healthy birthday traditions she would discuss, so you’ll know if she comes in later this week and says that she always climbs a mountain and eats kale at the top of it, she’s totally lying.

However! I DO have a healthy-ish Mother’s Day tradition, which I just got to partake in recently, as it was Mother’s Day and all. And it’s gardening!

These flowers are going in the ground!

It was an accidental tradition, really. I can’t remember exactly, but it may have started the year I was pregnant with my first. I told my husband that 1) YES, we would be celebrating me for Mother’s Day because my belly was the size of a large wildebeest, and 2) I would much rather plant flowers than receive them. So we started heading to Home Depot on the big day and bought flowers and veggies galore. Now on my fourth Mother’s Day this year, we went out to breakfast and then I got to go to Home Depot all by my lonesome to pick out all of my flowers.

It’s relaxing. I get to take my time looking at all of the options, seeing which ones do well in the shade and which need full sunlight. Planning and plotting what I’ll do with the blooms. Then, the hubby lets me have the time I need to plant them (although this year I had a little 3-year-old helper some of the time). For whatever reason (it must be the Kansas in me), I love yard work. So planting my flowers in spring? Bliss! Plus?

Gardening is seriously good exercise. And if you don’t believe me, surely you’ve never planted flowers, hauled mulch and trimmed bushes. Because I not only had to take a break and finish up the next day, but I was also sore!

I wish I still bought all of the veggies, but I’ve been banned from gardening for the near future. That first year, my daughter arrived five weeks early in August — right when my veggies were really picking up steam. I’ll just say that the newborn got more attention, the garden got severely neglected, and there were a few uneaten tomatoes. The next year? Morning sickness that hit around that time made harvesting tomatoes make me want to vom. The next, well, I had two small kiddos and I knew my garden would get neglected anyway. But flowers? Those I can manage to water and keep alive for the most part.

I’ll have my garden again once my kids are a little less need-beasty — and then maybe I can make my October birthday tradition a healthy one of opening a jar of tomatoes I’ve canned from my garden or eating a delicious dill pickle made with my grandma’s recipe!

Do you have any healthy holiday or birthday traditions? Were any of yours accidental? —Erin