Look at my teeth!

I have been very busy over the last 3 weeks. I was with Grandma Judy in Shellmouth from Aug  1st to 5th, then my parents took me to my first Clear Lake vacation from Aug 6th to 12th. We went back to Shellmouth and I spent a week with Grandma Judy again for a week while my parents were at the lake with their friends. Mommy will post lots of pictures of me having a blast at the lake (hopefully) soon!

Oh yeah and I’ve got 2 new teeth! the first one 2 weeks ago and the second one last week 🙂

I'm growing every day!

The (very late) weaning ceremony

In Japan, we have a ceremony called ‘Okuizome’, which is performed between 100 and 120 days from birth, to hope that your baby will never have to worry about food. There are traditional dishes to prepare, but since I can’t get most of the ingredients such as a fish with its head attached, I’ve decided to have an ‘Okuizome’-like ceremony.

We just pretend that babies eat. Traditionally, you “feed” your baby fish with chopsticks, then touch a rock (usually from a temple or a shrine) and touch your baby’s gums to simbolize a hope that your baby will have teeth that are as hard as a rock. I tried to let Courtney use the chopsticks, but realized that they were too small, so I switched to a baby spoon 🙂

Traditionally, new plates are supposed to be sent as a gift from a baby’s maternal grandparents, and a person who “feeds” a baby should be the oldest in the household, which is usually a grandparent (grandmother for a baby girl and grandfather for a baby boy), in hope that the baby will live long too. I’ve read, however, that more parents do the ceremony on their own these days, and one website said that it’d be a great memory if a dad did it, which I have no idea why that is…anyway, here are one happy dad and one happy girl 🙂