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.