I love .....

Most people who write to me and ask about Jasmin will spell her name wrong, so an explanation is in order. Jasmin is named after the flower Jasmine. In Portuguese the name Jasmine is pronounced JAZ-MIN-I. Both Andre and I did not want her to be called JAZ-MIN-I so we have purposely taken off the E from Jasmine. Now her name sounds the same in both Portuguese and English.

Jasmin is growing so fast, at her 3 month check up she weighed 6.1 kilos and was 62 cm. Jasmin has taken after my side of the family with her looks, she is a mini Steven. However I can see little bits of personality now and then and she is so much like Andre and his sister Jerusa. I am still only breast feeding Jasmin, a great perk about breast feeding full time is you don't get a period apart from the one after birth. That was a long one, 5 weeks. 5 weeks of wearing pads, I had the worst chafe of my life. I love you Hipoglos cream.

Jasmin has discovered she has hands and is getting very good at her hand to mouth co-ordination, everything see touches goes in her mouth. Jasmin loves to be held and cuddled and my arm's are always sore because she is getting so heavy. Watching her make new discoveries every day is a joy and babies learn fast. She loves to sit even though she is unable to by herself yet. Mum told me I was walking at nine months, I reckon Jasmin will be the same.

I love the smell of Jasmin's breath, it smells like sweet milk.

I love her fine fluffy hair.

I love her grey eyes and long eye lashes.

I love her gummy smile.

I love when she pouts her bottom lip.

I love when she pokes her tongue out at me.

I love how she likes to chew everything she touches.

I love her chunky cheeks.

I love her button nose.

I love her double chin.

I love when she gurgles at me.

I love when she screams and scares herself.

I love when she sneezes and farts at the same time.

I love to hear her try to talk to me.

I love when she talks to her owl mobile above her cot.

I love when she talks to her Winnie the Pooh blanket.

I still love to watch her sleep.

I love the faces she pulls when she is sleeping and dreaming.

I love her cute little belly button.

I love her chubby arms and legs, they have so many creases in them.

I love the dimples on her knuckles because her hands are so chubby.

I love when she tries to do sit ups.

I love her dimpled bottom.

I love her loud, smelly farts.

I love when she’s hungry, it’s life or death if she doesn’t get a boob straight away.

I love watching Jasmin feed from my breast.

I love it when Jasmin is drunk from my milk.

I love how every morning when she wakes up and sees me she smiles.

I love when she gets angry, her eye brows go red and she looks so cute.

I love watching her shower with Andre.

I love to watch her play with her baby gym.

I love watching Andre play with Jasmin.

I love every thing about her and then I love her some more.

Having Jasmin in my life has opened my eyes so much and made me a more patient person, Babies are so forgiving, makes me wish grown ups were as forgiving. Jasmin has taught me not to be so serious and have fun, pull faces, dance and sing, I do all sorts of silly things to entertain her and it doesn’t matter where I am. It's very hard work being a mother but I'm loving it. Andre will be celebrating his first Daddy Day tomorrow and I know he is so proud of our little princess just as I am.

World cup fever

World cup fever had swept across Brazil, their crazy for football (can’t call it soccer here, they look at you strange). I cannot believe work, schools, shops, everything closes to a stand still when Brazil played. When ever Brazil scored a goal the sky erupts with noisy fire works that scared the hell out of me, I especially didn’t like it when it was an early game 10:30 am. Very rude awakening. I think the whole country is watching the game, I’m not a big fan of watching sport on television (much rather play) but tried to watch a few games here and there. In the beginning I told everyone Australia will win the world cup, they just laughs at me. I don’t know what’s so funny about that! How cool was Octopus Paul!

The weather here in Rondonopolis is a predictable sunny 33 degrees every day. It’s the dry season and I have not seen rain for 3 months. Although we had a couple of weeks where it felt like a Melbourne winter. I was not prepared for the cold and only have one pair of tracky pants and one jumper. You can imagine how I smelt after a whole week of wearing the same clothes. I have been spoilt by this heat and I will be a big wimp when I return to a wintery Melbourne. In the dry season the nights are a cooler but the day is still to unbelievably hot to do anything outside. I don’t know how anyone works in this heat, so glad my job is looking after Jasmin.

I have been in Brazil for 9 months and got no where with the Portuguese language. Everyone in the family talk way to fast for me to try and understand and Andre’s step sister Luciene felt sorry for me not being able to communicate. She is a teacher for little 4 to 5 year olds and is teaching me Portuguese after hours and in return I am teaching her English. I have completed my alphabetization and slowly getting in to phrases. I enjoy my time with Luciene, it gets me out of the house and she is has such a big heart. Luciene is not a blood sister, she was adopted by Andre’s parents when she was fifteen.

Brazilians are very religious, 70% are catholics and every year in June and July they celebrate all the saints. They do this by throwing big country parties with traditional food, clothing and dancing. I went to a couple and the were very colorful events, loads of fire works and flags. The girls would wear short little dresses similar to Jasmin’s in all different colors and the men would dress up like farmers with patches on their shirts and pants. The food is fabulous as always and my favorite drink had to be the hot spiced wine, nothing quite like hot wine to warm you up on a cool night. Brazilians sure know how to party.

MOSQUITOES. No matter were you are in the world there is nothing more annoying then mosquitoes, here in Rondonopolis they come in the millions. I must admit I am grateful that it is the dry season, dengue mosquitoes are not out in high numbers as they are in the wet season. One thing that really annoys me about the mosquitoes here is they are silent unlike the ones I have encountered in Australia. The Australian mossies give you a warning that they are coming so you can prepare for battle. The Brazilian mossies are silent and sometimes deadly, you don’t even know you have been bitten until it’s to late.

I am the mossie assassin, I cannot sleep until every mossy in my room is dead. Andre thinks I look like a crazy person when I am hunting for mossies. I pull my bandana tight around my head like Rambo does, I arm myself with a pillow/towel what ever is near by (I stopped slapping walls with my hands a while back because I kept hurting myself) and I start running, chasing the mossies. Sometimes I get lucky and sneak up on them and POW, one deadly swipe with a pillow and his a gonner. I always try to use Andre’s pillows because I hate getting blood all over my pillows. I have lost count of the number of kills, maybe around 1,000 by now. If I were a Buddhist, I would be in for so much bad Karma.