Jasmine's 2nd Birthday!

The months went by slowly. Jasmine celebrated Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day,and Easter at Wanaque. We would visit as often as we could, and still went back to Children's to volunteer on occasion. Every time we would go see Jasmine, I had a hard time leaving her. She spent alot of time by herself, and that killed me. Verna spent as much time as she could with her, and would even braid her hair. I would rock Jasmine to sleep before we would leave, and then gently lower her into her crib. I figured at least she wouldn't realize
                  we were leaving, and that she was
dreaming sweet dreams. I have to mention that during all of these trips to see Jasmine, Jill was still in alot of pain from her accident. She had a hard time sitting or standing for any length of time, so the trip for her was very hard. So were the visits. I could see she was hurting, but I think Jasmine distracted her so she was kind of like her "pain medication". Jill was still going for therapy, and had a couple of operations to manipulate her knee to get more range, and had some hardware from her knee removed. There is nothing harder than seeing your child in pain, especially when there is nothing you can do to help. Through her whole ordeal, Jill has said that if she had to do it all over again for Jasmine, she would. I don't know many people that would say that. She is my hero.
Jasmine's 2nd birthday was approaching, and Verna was planning a party of all parties. She made a ton of Jamaican food, bought decorations, had a Little Mermaid cake, and invited all the nurses and aides to come. Well, what a party it was. There was music and laughter and ALOT of people, the exact opposite of her first birthday. Jasmine got lots of presents, and when the party was over, Verna told me to take them home with me. This was the first time that it seemed like I might really be taking Jasmine home. Jill and I collected all the presents and took them home. We admired all the beautiful gifts that had been given to her, and put them in a corner, waiting hopefully for the day that they would truly belong to her.