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 🙂
That looks like a really fun ceremony/tradition (and very interesting too)! Erika looks like she really enjoyed it 🙂