Month Four

When Jake and I were taking our training classes we talked about honoring the culture that our foster child would come from. Our little buddy is Native American and his tribe has a fun and unique tradition that we were able to celebrate this past month. On August 23rd, baby boy laughed for the first time so a week after that happened we threw him a First Laugh Ceremony. The tribe believes that a baby's first laugh marks it's birth as a social being. It is believed a child assumes the qualities of the person who witnesses, or coaxes his first giggle, and that was me! That also means that I was the one who gets to host the ceremony. It was actually perfect timing because my parents and two youngest siblings were visiting from California so they were able to come as well as many other family members. 

Once a baby has laughed, training in generosity begins immediately and that is one aspect of this ceremony. We had each guest take home a yummy drink, each one contained a different quote about laughter.

This quote was one of my favorites:)

Once the family started arriving baby boy got lots of love and attention, and a few attempts at making him laugh again:)

We gave Ivy one job and she took it very seriously. She gave each guest a smiley face sticker when they arrived. She went a bit overboard and started putting them all over the place. Soon the furniture (and most guests foreheads) were adorned with happiness.

Once everyone had their dinner I read about why this ceremony takes place and baby boy and I passed out salt to each guest which they immediately put in their mouth. The salt is meant to rejuvenate the good character in each recipient and serves as the first in a lifetime of generous acts by the child.

After the actual ceremony part of the party was over, and after being passed around for hugs and kisses many times, Bubba was pretty tired. We let him rest a bit.

Babies are just so entertaining:)

My husband and mother-in-law made some Indian fry bread for dessert. It was delicious!

I wasn't able to get everyone who came to the ceremony in this post since a majority of the pictures had baby boy's sweet face in them:) But I am so thankful for my loving family who came to support our little guy!

One quick update about month four: baby boy has two teeth, he is wearing 6-9 month clothes, and he has officially moved on to a stroller since I can no longer last with him in the Baby Bjorn. He is a big boy and we sure love all his chunkiness!