Some family time

This past week was stressful - to say the least - so it was nice just to have the weekend to hang out together and take a couple of deep breaths. Louie, Josie & I hung out together all weekend - starting with our regular trip to Findlay Market on Saturday morning. After lunchtime and naptime, we headed out to the Kenwood Mall to put a dent in Josie's fall wardrobe needs. (Oddly enough, you would never know that our country was allegedly poised on brink of economic failure because the mall was packed!) Here's a shot of Josie in her stroller, which I'm including because she looks like such a girl (and not a baby) in the picture. It's also funny because she had her mouth packed with cheddar-bunny crackers like a little squirrel.On Sunday after our weekly grocery store trip (and learning that you shave about an hour off the trip by hitting Whole Foods by 10am), we came home for family naptime (because forget about the Bengals) and then headed to the park at Sawyer Point this afternoon. The park has always been fun, but now that Josie is walking around, it's even better. Here she is toddling...

On to the big metal tubeslide (that she used as a giant drum in a photo a couple of weeks ago). Today, she got very curious & wanted to go down it (head first of course), and since Daddy was waiting at the bottom, we let her go for it.
But, leave it to Josie to have fun with good ole' fashioned nature. Slides and swings are great, but dancing with and chasing your shadow is the best!
Seriously, how cute is that!?

And, I'll leave you with a photo of Josie picking the grass. This is the same field where I took the picture of Josie and Louie exploring the grass at the Earth Day celebration back in April. She's grown up so much since then. :)

Allergy Test Results

The trip to the allergist yesterday confirmed that Josie has a severe allergy to peanuts and allergies to other nuts (although markedly less severe). We were glad that she only had to have twelve tests since we knew she was okay with milk, eggs, and some other common allergens. Poor little thing definitely cried, but they let me hold her so once they finished with the actual scratching, I was able to nurse her and she calmed right down. She was actually quite cheery during the 15 minute wait to read the reactions. They even had a TV set up next to her with a tape of Tweety Bird playing. All in all, it was frightening for all of us, but Josie was so brave.

It's easy to tell below which one was the peanut test. She scored at 4+ on a scale of 1-4 regarding the severity based on this reaction. Perhaps the scariest thing is that this is with a serum that is only a small fraction of the actual strength of the peanut protein. (I believe he said it was 1/32 strength.) So, obviously letting Josie come into contact with an actual peanut or peanut butter would mean real trouble.

Really, it is such a blessing in disguise that we now know this about Josie so we can do everything we need to do to keep her safe. Obviously we'll be having follow-up conversations with friends/family about the changes we will all need to make to protect her. We are also going to go ahead and do the blood test so that we can have a number to track each year. The doctor was hopeful that by the time she is a teenager (and if her exposure to peanuts between now and then is nill) that she could even outgrow the allergy! :) Thanks for the outpouring of support over the past week. Love you all!

Peanut Allergy Update

Yesterday afternoon we met with the allergist and came up with an action plan re: Josephine's (obvious to him) peanut allergy. Since she had Benadryl on Saturday, we had to wait until today to do the skin test for peanuts and other common allergens. I believe I mentioned that they were going to do blood tests, but after talking with him we decided to go ahead with the skin patch test which will give us instant results. (Since we are flying to Rhode Island one week from today, we would likely not have had the test results back before the flight where we will need a letter from the allergist to give to the flight crew re: her peanut allergy and in order for us to travel with epi-pens.) We learned A LOT yesterday and will undoubtedly learn a lot more today. Thanks for everyone who has emailed to check on Josie today. Please keep our little sweetie in your hearts today as she is going to have to undergo some pretty uncomfortable stuff at 4:30. (They will be pricking her back with various allergens to wait for a reaction. I'm absolutely ill over the thought of putting Josie through this, but it is very important for us to know the severity of allergy in order to move forward appropriately.)

THANKS!

Thank you to everyone for your kind words, support, and suggestions as we work to figure out all of this peanut allergy stuff. We have her appt with the allergist tomorrow afternoon & I will update everyone after that. Big Hugs, Your Three Schneiders

The scariest thing that has ever happened in our lives!!!

Well, Big News at the Schneider house and not the fun kind. We found out on Friday night that Josephine has a peanut allergy. I'll try to keep a long story short and just say that some miscommunication between Louie & I led to him giving Josie a bite of peanut butter to taste. As I was walking in the door, I saw a spoonful on her high chair tray and when I found out it was PB, scooped it up and as we were cleaning off the tray, she started to have a pretty severe reaction that involved raised welts on her face and hands, swollen face/eyes, coughing, and later big puffy hands and feet. We immediately knew what was happening, so Louie called 9-1-1. They instructed us to meet the EMTs in the lobby of our condo. I was actually pretty calm until I heard the sirens coming and then it hit me that we had just called 9-1-1 and they were coming to help poor little Baby Josie. Through it all, she was a little angel. She didn't cry, just rubbed and rubbed her little eyes. The EMT crew was outstanding and the woman was very relaxed and comfortable with children which I think made the whole thing better. Once it was clear that her breathing didn't appear to be in danger, they just stuck around for a bit to observe her for a while and help us decide whether or not to put her in the ambulance and take her to Children's Hospital. Taking their advice, we decided to keep her here and give her Benadryl, make sure she didn't come anywhere near peanuts over the weekend, and call the doctor on Monday to get a prescription for an Epi-pen.
The rest of Friday night was pretty scary because the whole thing happened around 7pm. Even after the Benadryl she was still really puffy and it was clear her throat was swollen because she had trouble swallowing food that is normally no problem at all (this went on into Saturday where she actually choked at my parents' house which was the 2nd scariest thing that has ever happened to us). After about 24 hours of Benadryl, she was back to her normal cheery self on Sunday although Louie & I are far from back to normal ourselves.
After a talk with the pediatrician this morning, the director of the Children's Center where we attend Josie's music class, and the allergist this afternoon - it looks like things are really going to change around here. Obviously we are willing to do whatever we have to do to keep Josephine safe. There are sure to be major changes to our diets and a lot of education for us and for anyone who comes in contact with Josie (sorry Grand-daddy, no more peanut butter anytime Josie is in the house). Louie & I have realized that we have so much to learn, too. (For example, the chips we were eating for lunch today contained peanut oil and were promptly tucked away until we do a complete food overhaul.) We have an appt with the allergist on Wednesday afternoon. He will take Josie's blood and test it for a number of allergies, prescribe us the epi-pen, and educate us on how to proceed.
Thanks to everyone in advance for your understanding, as we will all undoubtedly have to make some changes. If Josie would've had that second bite of peanut butter, it is no exaggeration that you could quite possibly be attending her funeral today instead of reading her blog. One thing is for sure in considering what's ahead, she's worth it!

Some random fun

Since our babysitter had an out-of-town soccer game today, I got to spend the day with Josie instead of my laptop! :) We had a really fun day! And here are some photos and videos to prove it. To start, I finally got some video of our bi-lingual daughter who speaks "Canine" in addition to English.


And - speaking of dogs - today was Cincinnati's annual "Dachshund Dash" to kick off OktoberFest. Picture 40 little wiener dogs, complete with foam buns, ketchup, and mustard racing toward a line of adults each waving a squeaky toy or treat in the air. It actually attracted quite a crowd, including one very excited 13 month old. These are the impromptu events that I will miss when we move out of the city - especially since Louie met us for lunch and the big race as well.
Here is Josie getting a closer look. The funny thing was that it took her awhile to even register these as dogs since she's used to much bigger ones, but after reassuring her that these were in fact dogs she was woof-woofing in no time.
And I'll end this post with a regular scene around here that I was able to capture on video to share with you all - the excitement that can only come from one thing - the Sesame Street theme song. (It is a little sweet to think about how many children around the world smile and dance when they hear the same thing.) Enjoy!

Cuddles and more...

Is there anything cuter than a sleeping baby? Okay, maybe a sleeping Josie cuddling up to her little Steiff bunny. Over the last week she has become absolutely obsessed with anything stuffed in our house. It's funny. She takes things on "rides" on her alligator, hugs and kisses them, and refuses to let them go when it's necessary that she have a free hand. Case in point - lunch time. She woke up from her nap and was ready to eat, but absolutely refused to let go of either one of these toys (that would be the bear the front desk people gave her at the Beverly Wilshire on your left and Cook Monster on the right) -
After several moments of negotiating & temper tantrums, we reached the following compromise:
It's truly amazing that it feels as though she was just a cooing newborn and now she is a full-on toddler, complete with opinions and demands. (Heaven helps us when she's a teenager.)

Speaking of our little lady growing up, I keep forgetting to post her "stats" from her one year doctor's appointment:
Height -31.5 inches (Or 2 feet, 7.5 inches which sounds taller for some reason)
Weight - 22.5 pounds
The big change here is that she used to be 50% in height-for-weight, meaning that she was perfectly proportioned. But now, she is in 95th percentile for height and only in the 60th percentile for weight, so as her doctor put it she is "long and lean." It's so strange because she has lost so much of her baby fat. In the last three months, she grew over two inches but only gained about a pound. (No worries, the doctor said she is perfectly healthy and that this is just the result of her crawling, walking and burning more calories.) It's just unbelievable how much she has changed!

This week in review...

So the big news at the Schneider house is that Josie is now 13 months old, has "gone mobile" and is therefore officially a toddler (didn't we just have a newborn?!). I thought it would be fun to show her progression over the last week. So, here is how it all began. Last weekend she started taking short bursts of steps after pulling up, but with little confidence.

As the week progressed, she took steps for greater and greater distances, but usually only if she had a "catcher" at the end and if she started from one of us or holding on to something. Then, midweek, she just randomly started trying to stand up on her own. (She could stand unsupported before, but only if she was already standing and holding on to something and let go.) I thought this was so cute that she was this persistent. She literally did this for about 30 minutes until she was out of breath and had it mastered. Here are some of her early attempts to stand up from a sitting position and start walking on her own.

Last night was definitely the night she mastered walking. We had a really fun night. We watched the movie "Across the Universe" (all Beatles music) and had a blast watching Josie dance and clap every time a song came on and practice walking around the room during the boring parts. And that brings us to this afternoon. In just one week she has gone for trying to walk to full-on walking! Now, she walks on her own when she's trying to get somewhere (like in the video below) instead of before when she only walked if encouraged. Look at her go!

Here are some other photos from this past week. (This is a good time to apologize for not posting sooner this week, but Carissa was sick so I didn't have a babysitter Thursday or Friday. And no babysitter means that any downtime goes to work and not the blog.) Anyway, back to this past week. As you know from past videos, Josephine loves shoes. Here she is wearing her daddy's work shoes. Too cute! (I should mention she went over and did this herself. We just took the photo.)Since I had some extra free time with Josie this week, we walked down to the awesome park at Sawyer Point. Here is Josie crossing a little bridge at the playground. It was a weird moment for me, because I had this big flashback to crossing the little bridge in the Brownie ceremony when I was little and a big flashforward to Josie doing the same thing one day (should she so choose.)We had a great time at the park - and the big metal tube slide made a perfect drum!Here is Josie playing the big chimes - And peeking out around the corner of the playhouse (this picture cracks me up). Looking back, we had a lot of quality "park time" this past week. Lou's annual lawfirm picnic was yesterday. It was so strange to think back to last year's picnic. Josie was only about 6 weeks old and this year she was busy walking around and socializing with everyone. Here she is with Louie and one of the big flowers from the gardening basket we won as a doorprize. She carried this flower around for about an hour (almost as cute as that frozen bag of peas months ago).
Here is Josie's awesome tshirt that all the kids at the firm got airbrushed for them. (Lou and I were disappointed that we couldn't get one made for ourselves with a Carri + Lou and a big unicorn.)Here's just another random photo from the week - Josie and I reading some books before bedtime. And that brings us to today - lots of loose ends to tie up around the house & the Bengals game. We started the day with high hopes for our Bengals and suited Josie up in her new Bengals gear courtesy of "Grandma Who-Dey". But, by half time we were looking for other entertainment (darn Bengals), luckily Josie was in the mood to entertain us.

Here she is taking some of her favorite toys for a ride on her "clacky gators". As I'm typing this, she has just piled another set of toys on top of it to take them on a ride, too. So cute!

Our little Rockstar!

Special report: Today was Josephine's first music class. We signed up for "Tiny Tunes" at the Cincinnati Family Enrichment Center. It's so cute. The age group is 0-18 months and there are seven little sweeties in the class. Josie is the second-oldest, so it was so cute to see her with the wee ones. The class is mostly just interactive singing and dancing with the babies and their moms/dads. It's already very clear that this class will yield some lasting memories. :)

Josie's sweet new skills

Although she wasn't in the best mood during the taping of this video, she cooperated enough for us to capture some of her newly-acquired skills -



And, although we aren't considering it completely official just yet, Josie is "pretty much" walking. Here are a couple of still photos of the excitement -with a video coming soon. (The one I took and planned to upload has some kind of "internal error" - argh!)
Even cuter than these early steps are the pauses to stand and "dance" - hilarious.
This is more about Carissa's skill than Josie's but it's pretty exciting that Josie's hair is now long enough to do the "Pebbles" look with one ponytail on top.
And almost as good as the ponytail is the aftermath. Checkout of Josie's mohawk!
Okay, promise to get a walking video up soon. Here she comes, so I gotta run.....

Josie's Shutterfly collection has just been updated with the August photos - note her birthday photos and NYC photos are in separate albums - www.josiemarie.shutterfly.com Thanks!

In Josie news...

Josie has been walking in small bursts around the house - the record so far came last night with six unprovoked steps. She was holding on to the chair and then turned and walked over to me in the middle of the room - laughing the whole way of course. She also took several steps several times back and forth between Louie & I this evening. So, in typical Josie fashion, she totally knows how to walk but will only do it when she feels like it. (Are you at all surprised?)
Josie has also gotten another tooth (bottom right) and that little bugger (top left) has *finally* broken the skin. So, she is quickly moving from five to seven teeth. There are several more just below the surface, so please say a prayer to the 'teething gods' for us that they don't cause too much late-night strife in the coming weeks.
One other super adorable thing Josie is now doing is saying "Woof, Woof" at the sight of any dog in person, on TV, or in a book. It's really cute. Not sure yet whether or not to actually count this as her first word (beyond Mama & Dada of course) but there is no doubt that this is what she is saying.
If you're wondering why we haven't captured any of these newly acquired skills & tricks on video just yet it's because Josie has become absolutely obsessed with the camera. Anytime I get it out she immediately drops what she is doing & heads straight for it. (Putting it away also led to her first official temper tantrum yesterday - stomping feet and all - which is news I am not happy to report.) Anyway, I will continue to try to capture these elusive moments for you as the week goes on.

Whatta weekend!

Labor Day weekend is always a big deal in Xenia. Both my sister and I always come back to town and we get to spend some extended time with family and old friends. We've definitely had some memorable Labor Day weekends in the past. But, I can say with certainty that no Labor Day weekend has topped all of the excitement of this one. The formula was simple --> one very pregnant little sister + one very pregnant best friend + that same little sister turning 30 + one daddy-o turning 60 + debbie's birthday as well = lots of celebrating to do!!! Amanda's shower went really well. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day and Debbie & Phillip's deck provided the perfect place to enjoy the family, friends, and baby-anticipating fun. I was so fortunate to have the help of so many people in planning the big day & cannot thank mom, Debbie, Ava & Julie enough for everything they did to help.
I'll let you all head to www.threeaustins.blogspot.com for the full report and photos from the shower (if not up now, I'm sure it will be soon) but I had to share just a few photos from this weekend of Josie getting up close and personal with "Baby A."