In a few days my youngest son will be 100 days old. We will celebrate with our immediate family, taking tons of pictures and enjoying the company. This being our third child, everything is old hat now and we realize it's not always necessary to have elaborate celebrations with tons of people and lavish surroundings. We appreciate family, our healthy children, our family. It will be a happy celebration.
In some ways, I feel like the baek-il (100 day celebration) will kind of bittersweet. We are almost certain (95%) that this is our last child. So I am feeling a little twinge of sadness with each passing milestone. I realize this might be the last time I hold a sweet little newborn baby in my arms, experience the firsts - smiles, coos, laughs - and I will never be pregnant again. Part of me is relieved to have that part of my life closed. No more stretch marks! The other part isn't quite ready to say goodbye. Maybe it's residual new mom hormones but when I nurse my sweet baby boy to sleep and ruffle his hair with my fingers I feel a pange of sadness. These small moments are already passing me by so quickly.
As you add more kids to the family, I think it is easy to become apathetic about taking photos, celebrating birthdays and all the things you thought were so important when you had the first child. I want to make sure that we continue the traditions we instilled in our family when our first was born. The only difference between then and now is that I know it doesn't have to be some elaborate show for other people. We can celebrate our child and our heritage in simple ways. Because for me, it is not important how we celebrate but that we do. I want our children to grow up with a proud knowledge of rich Korean traditions and culture.
So this time, instead of the requisite kalbi and japchae, we're having salmon and potatoes. But of course we'll have the 100 day rice cake - Mixing old tradition with new.
Happy 100 Day, little guy
