100th Day Celebration

Today was Dash's 100th day celebration, or "Baek-Il" in Korean.  In Korea, on the 100th day after a child's birth, the family celebrates the child having survived the most vulnerable time in their life (physically). The family and friends celebrate by eating traditional red bean rice cakes, which symbolize the hope of longevity and happiness.

We were thrilled to have family in town to celebrate this special occasion for Dash. We had them draw pictures and write small notes to him that he can look at when he is old enough. Besides the traditional rice cakes, we also ate Korean Sweet Pancakes. Usually the baby will wear traditional Korean clothing, but since we don't have any for Dash, we decided to wear ours!

We also did a traditional Korean ritual: The child is seated before a table (in our case, a blanket) of various foods and objects such as thread, books, notebooks, brushes, ink and money. The child is urged to pick up an object from the table, as it is believed the one selected first will foretell the child's future. For example, if the child picks up a writing brush or book, he is destined to be a scholar. If he picks up money or rice, he will be wealthy. If the child picks up the thread, it is believed he will live a long life.

Although we don't necessarily buy into predicting the future, we placed the following objects in front of Dash: a pencil (scholar), money (wealth), a hymbook (musician), a missionary tag (RM or General Authority), a football (athlete), a shoelace (long life), a lion (animal lover), and a phone (engineer). As you can see from the picture, Dash ended up picking the phone. 

Rhetorically, 

Rebekah