Jasmine van Zoest

What is Jasmine capable of doing these days?

She is very interested in music. She bobs her head to most tunes we play. Especially to the song “Hear My Name” by Armand van Helden. It is very cute to watch. Her Papa has an entry in his blog about this.

Aside from dancing, she likes to stack blocks and she also tries very hard to talk. She tries to repeat every word we say, in either Dutch or English, although she shows a greater understanding of English than Dutch (at the moment). She is also gaining more confidence in herself and taking small steps alone. So I guess it’s all a matter of time before she starts to walk fully. When the time comes, it will be celebrated, but we are not going to rush her. And we are very happy we got her the red pushing car. She loves it so much she gets in the car and asks us to push her around. Just when we started to think she'll never get enough of it, she gets off when the car comes to a full stop.

Well here are some pictures of her with spiked up hair taken last week. One of rare occurrences where her hair cooperated:

Jasmine is about to embark on a new adventure. Around 10 and half months old: Jasmine, Mama, and Papa; are going to visit her great grandparents in Europe. She's got a warm jacket and a good spirit. Both of these are essential for this trip. We hope her good spirits will last until the very end. This trip brings a new jive and it will be interesting to see how she reacts to all of it.

As for her current development, she started to combine words together, i.e., "Hi Daddy." She does a bunch of other things too, like most babies her age. Things such as playing pretend games, she pretends to give us a toy, but then takes it back. And she likes to fill her toy basket full – just so she can dump it out afterward. She likes to dress herself with simple items: such as putting on her hat and her sunglasses. She also likes to sing-a-long to a tune or two. :-)

Health wise, she threw-up last week, but recovered from it very soon afterward. She caught a stomach bug from the day care, but it did not seem to bother her too much. She was back to her normal health the day after. Overall, she is healthy. We are very fortunate to have a healthy child.

Boarding the plane flight felt very surreal. It was like a movie, most people faces have a look of panic and we even heard some of them chant, “Please do not sit next to me!” I guess babies have bad reputation.

Jasmine proved them wrong. Jasmine did very well on the entire set of flights. She was an angel and behaved impeccably despite her lack of sleep. People were giving us glowing smiles of encouragement. They would say to us, “She’s such an angel!” “We didn’t know there was a baby on board.” and others saying “I thought traveling with babies would be a nightmare, but she has shown me a completely different experience. This was the best flight I had.”

All was is well with our flight to the Netherlands. We hope to have a similar experience on our way back to the U.S.

Jasmine first two days in Europe, we stayed with her great grandparents in Aalten, Netherlands. Along with meeting her great grandparents and she also met her uncles: Henk, Dick, Henno, Eelco & Mathijs; and her aunts: Rianne, Wilma, Sonny, Vivianne, and Stephanie. She was very fond of them.

The remaining time, we went with Papa to Leiden as that is where his work is located. (Papa works for The Venice Project.) While Papa is at work, Jasmine and Mama walked around town. We discovered many interesting things and places to go to in Leiden. For instance Jasmine and Mama discovered the city’s library. They have large sections devoted entirely to children’s: books, cds, dvds, and toys. (I guess we could have checkout some of the toys in the library if we have library card.) Aside from the library we also went to several museums, such as the museums of ethology, which currently has a program on the world’s food.

The trip was made better when Jasmine and Mama found non-smoking cafés and diners, toyshops, grocery stores (very important – to refill diaper supplies and etc), drug stores, and clothing stores.

We had so much fun exploring Leiden, and we even dared to venture to an adjacent city. We took a sneltrein (fast train) to Den Haag (The Hague) with a friend and went to the beach called Scheveningen. Scheveningen is a modern seaside resort with a very long sandy beach, a pier, lighthouse, and an esplanade. It was a bit too cold for us to enjoy it fully. So, we look forward to going back to it during the summer.

Insofar, we like Leiden very much. And we can’t have gotten around so easily without the help from several friends. They provided us with maps, guidances, and lots of support.