First and foremost, the pre-school battle has ended, and the Schneiders are victorious! It was a long, hard fight consisting of research, observations, interviews, applications, fees, and more to find our perfect pre-school and we got our top choice. Josie will be attending Xavier University's Montessori Lab School beginning this fall. It's a true montessori, peanut-free, centrally-located, well-priced and serves a diverse student population. And, it's a beautiful, nurturing environment. In short, it meets all of our criteria and more! Josie was one of 9 kids chosen out of about 80 applicants. Obviously, we couldn't be more excited.
In other great news, Josie is officially diaper-free! I hate to use the term "potty-trained" because it sounds like something you do to a dog, but she uses the big potty now and it's pretty wonderful. Really, it was yet another reminder not to force Josie into anything she wasn't ready for. She thought she was ready a few months ago (and so did we) but she was resistant to actually using the toilet. But, once she was really ready, it was a breeze. No stickers, no candy, no charts, no muss, no fuss. She only had two "accidents" and since then it's been smooth-sailing. Again, a little bittersweet that she's "all grown up" but we're proud of her, and it's been a real learning experience for us and reminder to follow her lead.
Gosh, maybe I should change the title of this post to "Finally, some BITTERSWEET news" because this next also inspires some mixed emotions. Josie is* finally* sleeping through the night. Honestly, I'm not exaggerating when I say that the last week or so has been the first time since she was born that she has slept a full-night without needing Louie or I. I haven't shared the full realities of our sleep battles over the blog, because it really isn't something anyone could understand unless they had gone through it and most advice, although well-intentioned, was often rooted in the belief that Lou & I were somehow doing something "wrong." Anyway, suffice it to say, we have spent the better part of 2 1/2 years living very sleep-deprived lives. As it turns out, we finally stopped "forcing naps" upon Josie and our lives have drastically changed as a result. She now sleeps from about 8p to 8a without so much as a peep. It's a beautiful thing! Although, I must say, Louie & I miss her terribly. For the last 2 1/2 years, we spent at least part of every night either with Josie snuggling between the two of us in our bed or one of us tangled up with her in her bed. Even though the last two years of broken sleep and big, overnight tears were emotionally and physically taxing, I wouldn't trade a night of it for the fact that we got so much extra cuddling time with her. Now that we're on the other side of it, I'm glad that we stuck to the attachment parenting philosophies that we believe in, because they definitely saw us through what was a very difficult period and we came out of it closer to Josie than ever.
So, sorry for all the writing and not many pictures. I promise there are a TON of photos coming soon. We had a really amazing weekend with our friends from college & their kiddos that generated lots of good ones(remember those great Madison photos?). I'll get those up later this week.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with one random photo from last week. Josie was "signing" a card with her name and actually wrote a real, legible "O", "I", and "E". We couldn't believe it, so I gave her another blank piece of paper and asked her to write her name. Drumroll please... here it is!
(Big O in the middle, with an E on top of an I next to it.)
She's going to have her own blog before we know it!
She's going to have her own blog before we know it!
