Here Anna and Vlad are seven months old. They were still tiny for the 7-month old babies, and on top of “having nothing” in the stores, there wouldn’t be any clothes for such small babies, except raspashonki – sort of tops for babies, wholly opened on the front or the back, with no buttons or any other means of holding them together. They would work for three-month olds, but not for always moving seven-month olds. Almost until they were one, I was making all their clothes myself, unless I could find something suitable in the humanitarian aid.
So here Anna wears an apron-style dress and a kerchief, which I’ve crafted from an adult headscarf. They were grey-ish blue with the white polka dots. I’ve also made Vlad’s yellow overalls do not remember what I’ve used for material, but it was some recycling.
You can also see that they are not wearing diapers. Disposable diapers did not exist back then, and the water-proof underwear where you would put an insert just started to appear. It was expensive, of mediocre quality, so there were very high chances that the pants would be wet anyway. Hence – no diapers.
My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996.
I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future.
I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life.
As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.
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Hettie's Reflections 