Thursday, January 19, 2006

Happy Birthday Kate!

There's a special Korean tradition for a child's first birthday--kids are offered a variety of items to see which one they pick up first. The item chosen is supposed to reveal the child's path in life, or innermost character, or something.

Here's the table as we laid it out:



bowl of food The traditional item is a bowl of rice, but we used Unburied Treasure (the Trader Joe's version of the snack called Pirate's Booty), which is one of Kate's very favorite things in the whole world.

piece of string representing long life

mechanical pencil representing a scholarly interest (or perhaps a mechanical one)

Prismacolor art sticks representing an artistic bent

money representing financial aptitude

Doggies book representing... err... books. Or dogs, maybe.

And here's what happened:


She went for the food! I read afterwards that the bowl of rice is supposed to symbolize wealth. Perhaps choosing Unburied Treasure means that she'll be a pirate.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh Helen!! That is so cute! i had so much fun scrolling down and holding my breath to see what she would choose!

Mimi said...

What an incredible tradition and how neat that you followed it.

I am with Marilyn, I was holding my breath to figure out what she was going for...

April said...

How fun Helena! Great pictures of a fun tradition.

Happy birthday Kate!

Tina said...

I love that tradition! Happy Birthday Kate!

Anonymous said...

I had to LOL at the pirate thing, we've been calling my daughter a pirate since day one! Who knew it was a baby trend! Happy Birthday Kate!!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday, Kate! What a wonderful tradition, and I loved your telling of it. Thanks for sharing all the beautiful wedding photos today at 2Peas as well. :)

Anonymous said...

Helena...what a cool tradition! I couldn't wait to see what she was going to pick. So much fun. Thanks for sharing. Happy Birthday, Kate!

Anonymous said...

What an incredible tradition. So cool! I love your photos, you have caught all the action! She's sooo adorable looking at all the goods laid out before her. I love watching her grow up, thank you for sharing all these moments with us!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday, Kate!

What a fun tradition!

Georgie said...

I can't believe she's a year old already! Where did the time go?

Fern @ Life on the Balcony said...

I can't believe she is already a year old! Time flies, eh? She is adorable!!!

Kristi said...

Helena- such a fun tradition and how awesome that you documented it all!

Corina said...

Oh My! This is too cute... She is gorgeous and so are all of the pics!

Wanda E. Santiago said...

Happy Birthday to your sweet Kate!! Hugs to you and your family!! Wanda

Anonymous said...

This is such a wonderful blog! I loved "watching" Kate choose right along with you!! I was particularly tickled by your narration of the action! Great job, Helena!

Misty Cato said...

This photo series is so adorable - particular with your running commentary. Wish I would have known about this for my son's first birthday... oh who am I kidding, he would have gone for the food. :)

Rachelle Anne Miller said...

I love that you did this!! We HAVE to do something like this for my little one :) I'm going to try to capture it like you did! Sooo adorable!

Rachelle Anne Miller said...

We just did this for Isaac's birthday and it was so much fun! He took a good 5min to decide which item to pick - we were in such suspense. He almost grabbed the money but ended up choosing the food as well :)