More Jasmine

Text Box: Here we see that Jasmine has contracted the extremely rare disease, “Balloon-Animal-On-The-Head.”  Doctors predicted a full recovery and they were right! (June 5, 2005)

Text Box: One of the traditions here is to cut off the hair 40 days after birth.  People here believe that the hair is still dirty—even after all those baths!  It is normally the father’s job so I got out my shaver and made her look like Daddy!  Folks, let me tell you, I felt really guilty later when her hair started growing back in and there were patches that grew really fast and others that didn’t seem to want to grow at all!  Now, fortunately, her hair is filling out. (2-16-2005) Text Box: It’s quite common here to put mitts on the babies hands and feet.  It protects the baby from scratching itself (which they do quite often), and conserves a bit of heat.  Initially, I was resistant to the idea until I saw the scratches she gave herself.  The habit of covering the ear and trying to suck the thumb started early.  Now (Nov. ‘05), she prefers to drape one arm over her eyes to keep out the light, but she still sucks her thumb.  At that age she used to roll her eyes in a disturbing way.  As time passed, and her eyesight developed, that stopped. (2-22-2005) Text Box: Yes, I know this isn’t Jasmine.  But I couldn’t resist slipping in a photo of her big sister.  You can see that we piled Jasmine’s sleeping carrier and bag on top of a chair, and there’s a doughnut pillow leaning against it, but that didn’t stop Suci from falling asleep—at least she slept until the pillow fell and dumped her on the floor! (2-24-2005)

Text Box: I thought it was very interesting to take a photo of her tiny hand.  Now I’ve just got to find the foot that goes with it.  Poor Jasmine! :) (2-27-2005) Text Box: Jasmine was very attached to me in the months before I started work at SIS and became too busy.  She loved to have me hold her.  You can see from my hands how big she was at 2 months—interestingly, she   was (and is) bigger than most babies who are 2-3 months older than her!  At 8 months, she was larger than the 1-year-old baby of a friend. (3-2-2005) Text Box: Now you’re probably wondering why I’m showing you a picture without ANYONE in it.  It’s because this picture tells a story about the flood we experienced while living in Kemang Pratama.  A government employee in Bogor (2 hours away) opened the wrong floodgate, which sent a huge surge of water through the rivers and canals and broke over a levee that protected our community.  That’s the brown stuff you see.  The purple is our bedsheet—about 1.5’ off the floor and on the left you can just see the big Oxone fan that conked me on the head when the cardboard box that supported it melted in the water.  Jasmine’s stuff floats through the water—much of it was salvageable.  The plastic drawer on the right has two stories attached to it.  The first is that I had put my handphone on top of the cabinet that drawer was in.  The buoyancy of the cabinet caused it to flop over, letting the drawers out.  At the time, I thought my handphone was in the water but, later, Ita found it in that drawer.  To protect Jasmine, I emptied the drawer and put blankets and pillows in it, protecting Jasmine in a “boat” that could float if we were forced to evacuate through the flooded streets—which had water as high as my solar plexus, as well as mud and chemicals.   (3-6-2005) Text Box: Another view that shows you what happened. (3-6-2005)

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