Happy Birthday Kelly!

Here's another photo from Kelly's 30th birthday party. Josie was a very good girl. I think socializing must be in her DNA. All joking aside, it went well & our confidence was boosted. I even nursed her twice at the table - once while I was woofing down sushi with my right hand & holding her with my left. :)

Songs about Josephine

So, as little Josie has gone out into the world, people have told us about songs that share her name.

Soon after she was born, my dad reminded us of the Steely Dan song "Josie" - here are the lyrics. Lou particularly likes the first line since I bust out my hooters for Josie every two hours. :)

We're gonna break out the hats and hooters When Josie comes home / We're gonna rev up the motor scooters When Josie comes home to stay / We're gonna park in the street Sleep on the beach and make it / Throw down the jam till the girls say when / Lay down the law and break it When Josie comes home / When Josie comes home So good / She's the pride of the neighborhood / She's the raw flame / The live wire / She prays like a Roman With her eyes on fire / Jo would you love to scrapple/ She'll never say no / Shine up the battle apple / We'll shake 'em all down tonight/ We're gonna mix in the street/ Strike at the stroke of midnight /Dance on the bones till the girls say when /Pick up what's left by daylight When Josie comes home//When Josie comes home So bad / She's the best friend we ever had / She's the raw flame / The live wire / She prays like a Roman With her eyes on fire / When Josie comes home So good /She's the pride of the neighborhood /She's the raw flame The live wire She prays like a Roman With her eyes on fire

On our first trip to Grandma & Grandpa Schneider's house, Bob told me about an old song called "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine." After some research, we found at that it was the Number One song in 1911! (Actually, for all of you Titanic fans - it's the song that Jack sings to Rose when he holds her up on the bow of the boat in the famous "I'm the King of the World" scene and also the song she is singing as he is sinking to his death at the end. Cheery, huh?)
It's actually the cutest song ever & I'm busy trying to teach it to myself so I can sing it to our baby girl. Here are the lyrics:
Oh, say! Let us fly, dear Where, kid? To the sky dear /Oh, you flying machine! / Jump in Miss Josephine /Ship Ahoy!Oh, joy! / What a feeling/ Feels cold, thru the ceiling. /Ho, high!Hoopla, we fly! /To the sky so high/ Come Josephine, in my flying machine/ Going up, she goes! Up she goes! / Balance yourself like a bird on a beam /In the air she goes; there she goes! /Up, up, a little bit higher. / Oh, my! The moon is on fire. / Come, Josephine in my flying machine / Going up, all on, "Goodbye"/One, two, now we're off, dear. / Oh, you, pretty soft, dear. / Whoa! Say! Don't hit the moon./Oh, no, not yet but soon. /You for me,Oh, gee! /You're a fly kid. /Not me, I'm a sky kid. /Gee! I'm up in the air about you.
And, for your listening pleasure...here's a link to the music:
http://www.geocities.com/dferg5493/comejosephineinmyflyingmachine.htm

The third Josie song came from Ryan at Kelly's 30th bday. Lou & I were very impressed that he remembers the 80s "Outfield" song called "Your Love" that starts "Josie's on a vacation far away /Come around and talk it over. / So many things that I wanna say /You know I like my girls a little bit older. /I just wanna use your love tonight / I don't wanna lose your love tonight..."

So, the challenge has been issued. What other Josie/Josephine songs are out there????

Create a google account

FYI - in order to leave comments on the blog, you need to create a google account. Creating a google account is easy, because you just use your normal email address (my google login is my yahoo email address). Anyhoo, to create a google account, you can:
1) click on the link to leave a comment at the bottom of this message & follow the prompts to create an account or...
2) go to www.google.com and click on "sign in" in the upper right hand corner to creat an acccount or...
3) click here to go directly to the form & sign up.

Pediatrician Visit

Today Josie had her official one month pediatrician visit.
The verdict:
Length - 23 inches (95th percentile)
Weight - 12 lbs. 1 oz. (95th percentile)
So, all that breastfeeding appears to be paying off! :)
Her weight-for-height percentile is 50th, so she's perfectly proportioned. The doc says everything great & that she's healthy and thriving. It's great to get good news from the pediatrician.

Thanks goodness for Grandmas!

On Friday, Josie got a visit from her Grandma & Grandpa Johnson and on Saturday we went to visit her Grandma & Grandpa Schneider. I think the combined diaper changes between the two Grandmas was at least a dozen and they each logged several hours of quality cuddle time.
THANK GOODNESS FOR GRANDMAS!

Venturing Out More...

It's hard to believe that it's already mid-September, but I guess we've come a long way in the past five weeks. Considering that we spent the entire first week in our bed just staring at her & getting little else done, I guess it's impressive that we're now getting out of the house pretty regularly. There are many new photos posted on the Shutterfly site - click here to see them. These photos are from Kelly's 30th birthday party and Josie watching her first Bengals game with Dad. The other photo is one passed out baby after a marathon feeding session at Grandma & Grandpa Schneiders house on Saturday. All in all, things are going well. This week coming up is a busy one - my postnatal OBGYN visit, Josie's official one month "well baby" visit, another afternoon with the Hypnohotties, and a trip to Indiana next weekend so Josie can meet her Great-Grandmother.

Oh- one other thing- today I had to go through Josie's dresser and get put away all of the newborn sized clothes. It just doesn't fit anymore. Most of what she's wearing now is 0-3 months & even a couple of 3-6 month things. It was fun to get the new clothes out. :)

Hypno-Hotties

Yesterday was our first Mama & Josie adventure without Dad, and we had a great time! We met at the Blue Manatee with everyone who could make it from our Hypnobirthing class. We had a great time sharing tips, asking each other questions, and admitting the *truth* about our labors (ummm....OUCH!). We also got to meet each other's babies - which was awesome. By the end of the three hour visit, we decided to meet again next week. I feel so fortunate to have this group of moms to help me along. (It also helps that Josie is the youngest so I get to learn what's coming.) Here's the "Hypnohotties" photo that Jill sent out.

WOW- ONE MONTH!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
HAPPY ONE MONTH BABY JOSIE,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

4 weeks and growing quickly...

Little Josephine is already growing up so fast. This week she wowed us with her impressive abilities to hold up her head, smile at herself in the mirror, and grasp a pacifier to keep it in her mouth. Amazing! We're trying to resist the urge to contact the gifted pre-school just yet. ;)

If the photos above don't satisfy your Josie craving, check out the link to her Shutterfly album for her Week 4 photos.

http://www.josiemarie.shutterfly.com/

Jaundice, Thrush & Reflux Oh MY!

As I said on the "Things I've Learned So Far" list, there really is nothing worse than seeing your baby girl in pain and not being able to do anything to fix it. Unfortunately, we've been feeling that agony a lot over the past week. Thankfully, we finally found a way to help!

To go back a few steps, the day they released Josie from the hospital, the pediatrician suspected jaundice. So, they did a bunch of tests (and re-tests) and concluded (after a scare that she may have to be admitted) that she did in fact have jaundice and that we needed to take her home & keep her connected to a bili-blanket 24/7. (You may have seen the glow-in-dark baby photos from the first week when she had a big cord coming out of her blanket). Lou & I obliged, but honestly felt skeptical about the severity of the whole thing. We're less than thrilled about the whole "medical model," but since it only involved light therapy and not medication, we went along with it.

A few days later, we noticed that Josie's tongue was covered in a thick, white paste (yuck) and suspected thrush. This was no surprise since I was forced into four courses of antibiotics during labor. Rather than using the prescription, we decided to treat the thrush naturally with acidophilus & homeopathics. Fortunately, we later found out the the white tongue is probably just a heavy coating of milk, so it's a good thing we didn't use the Nystatin after all.

So, a few days later, Josie started spitting up - ALOT. And I'm not talking your normal baby spit-up...I'm talking projectile, clear the room, change all of your clothes and hers, choking, tears in her eyes, painful spitting up. It was only happening about once a day for a few days. Then, it started happening more regularly. Then, she started having trouble eating (thrashing around, coughing and gagging, getting frustrated). Then, she started this terrible grunting, moan after she ate. She did this for hours on end (and all night long) while wriggling and arching her back. It was clear she was in a lot of discomfort and no matter what we did, we couldn't make the pain go away. It was terrible.

We had to get help. The first call was to the lactation consultant from the hospital who said I was making too much milk and that she was getting too much foremilk (the watery stuff that comes out first) and not enough of the creamy hindmilk at the end. This oversupply of liquid, she said, was too much for her little tummy to handle so out it came. She recommended a crazy feeding schedule that involved double-feeding on each side, pumping the other, etc. It seemed overcomplicated (and dangerous to mess with nature), but I'd do anything to help out the baby girl. After a couple of days of that not working, we decided to schedule an appt with a lactation consultant who could sit down & help us get to the bottom of this. After an hour long appt, we learned a lot of things: 1) Oversupply is B.S., 2) Josie is definitely not having problems gaining weight (pushing 11 pounds now), 3) The problem is acid reflux.

Poor little girl, she's got terrible heartburn. The back arching was her attempt to stop the pain & the moans and grunts were in fact signs of discomfort. How sad! So, left equipped with a full arsenal of ways to combat reflux - nursing her sitting up, natural remedies, small but frequent feedings, keeping her upright, etc.

Then, we had 24 hours where she spit up everything she ate. She didn't have any meals that she kept down. She moaned and groaned all day. She was clearly in lots of pain and we couldn't do anything. She didn't want to be held or put down. She wailed when put on her back (which made changing diapers nearly impossible). We had to do something! We called the doctor who agreed to see us at 8pm that night. After meeting with us and examining her, she got diagnosed with GERD & prescribed Zantac. When all this first started, Lou & I swore we would not put her on medication. But, it's amazing how your opinions will change when the happiness of your child is at stake. To me, it was incredibly selfish to make her continue to be in pain because of my own stubbornness regarding prescription drugs. So, we're on Day Two of the Zantac and it appears to be helping. We've only had one major spit-up today and the moaning and groaning has almost stopped.

I'm sure this is just one of many more lessons that are sure to come as our venture into parenthood continues. Really, all that matters is that you do what is best for your children, even if it means putting your own beliefs aside.

With that, I've got some cuddling to do. Until next time, Carri

Josie in Black & White

Here are some black & white photos we took of Josephine over the past couple of weeks. We took the b/w photos to get the "perfect" one for our announcements (which we'll send out next week). I'll put the rest of the b/w photos on Shutterfly sometime soon.

Another week passes...

Well, little Josie is three weeks old now and we can hardly believe it. We feel like we're finally starting to get the hang of the basics, although we certainly recognize there's still a lot to learn!

Check out the link to the Shutterfly collection to see the new album which includes some new "firsts" - the first trip to Xenia, first dinner out, first trip to Grandma & Granddad's house, first trip to the park, etc. There are also some photos of Josie's first fancy outfit from her Aunt Amanda - too cute! Josie also went to her first of what will undoubtedly be many parties at the Roundtrees in Xenia (Thanks for the beer Kevin)!

Here's the link: www.josiemarie.shutterfly.com

The first photo above are of Josie's "Acid Reflux Face" (lots of gas and spitting up; poor little thing; thank goodness for Gripe Water). It's actually been really hard seeing her feel so uncomfortable after each feeding, but we're getting good at the preventative measures.

The second photo is of the three of us & my mom and dad in Xenia for Josie's first dinner out of the house. I can't tell you how good it was to order off a menu and have someone serve us.

So, week four begins. I can hardly believe she'll hit the one month mark on Saturday. It's unreal!

Updates to Blog

Hi all,

I just wanted to point out a couple of new things on the blog.

1) On the left, I've created a list of "Things I've Learned So Far". Enjoy!

2) I've added some new links. Thanks to fellow mama Katrina for sharing these new sites with me.

3) We'll be creating a new poll question (at the bottom) very soon.

If anyone has any ideas for things we could add, please feel free to mention them by posting a comment.

Thanks! Love, Us

Sleep when the baby sleeps???

So the mantra I've been hearing from everyone from my friends/family to the lactation consultants and Josie's pediatrician is "sleep when the baby sleeps." Sounds easy enough, right? But what if the baby doesn't sleep?? Then what??

Starting at about 9pm Sunday night, Josie decided she wanted to party like a rockstar for 24 hours rather than sleep. While babies her age are "supposed to" sleep at least 16 hours a day, Josie only slept about 8-9 hours on Monday. YIKES! I tried to get her to sleep ALL day yesterday. As soon as she would get into her deep, eyes rolled back in her head, loose-limbed state (that we lovingly call "Josie Jelly"), I would lay her down & she would instantly wake up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We never did figure out what the heck was going on - other than the possibility that she was having (another) growth spurt (characterized by her eating every hour on the hour). But, luckily it all ended at about 9pm last night when she finally went down and stayed down.

That's right...I GOT 8 HOURS OF SLEEP LAST NIGHT! :)
She slept 9:30-12:30, 1:30-4:30, 5-7, & 8-10 and I was able to sleep for 8 of those. Hooray!!

Sure, it came in 2 hour increments, but it's still 8 hours & I feel better than I have in days!

Josie is also doing much better today. She seems less stressed & more comfortable in her own skin. Yesterday she just seemed uncomfortable. I think it's going to be a good day.

The Miracle of the Female Body

As promised, here's the link to the Snapfish slideshow of my growing belly. There are lots of photos (almost 70), because there are 40 weeks of photos from the front & 40 weeks of photos from the side. My advice is to crank up the speed on the slideshow & enjoy the miracle that is the female body. :)

http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=172841594/a=29810213/t_=29810213

(These two photos were taken at 4 weeks & 40 weeks.... WHOA!)

More Josie photos

Here's the link to the new photos of Josie in the Shutterfly collection (and a couple of sneak previews here).

http://josiemarie.shutterfly.com/action/

She's gotten so much more alert & active, although she certainly still enjoys a good nap!

Easy like Sunday morning...

It's about 4pm on Sunday & I've officially accomplished a shower and getting dressed (not to mention keeping another human being alive for another day). So even though it seems like it should only be about 10am, it's already late afternoon. Everyone was right - you just wouldn't believe how long it takes to do everything when there's a new baby in the house. It's not that I'm complaining, I wouldn't trade my new life for the world, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a major adjustment! Major adjustments and all, things are going great. Josephine is eating like a champ & is already pushing 10 pounds! She's sleeping very well at night - usually for at least one 3-hour stretch before needing to eat again. As much as I would've thought the late night feedings would've been one of the hardest things, I've really grown to enjoy them. There's nothing quite like putting the baby down in between us in bed & cuddling her as she nurses herself back to sleep. It's one of the greatest things in the world. And the co-sleeper is a life saver. Having her so close to us has worked out beautifully.

So, a lot has happened in the past week. The major change was that Lou went back to work. After a solid week of the three of us just hanging out and learning to be a family, he begrudgingly returned to the firm (and was dreading it so much that he approached me with a plan to quit our jobs and move into a trailer in his parents driveway). It was definitely hard not having him here with us, especially since we had spend a week just sitting and staring in wonder at our beautiful new daughter. And, he's so good at calming Josie. He definitely has a certain touch that works miracles, because sometimes she just wants to be held by her dad. You should just see the way she looks up at him & stares deep into his eyes. Watching them together has been one of my favorite things so far.

Fortunately, my mom came to stay with me last week to help me adjust as Lou went back to work. She cooked, cleaned, washed, folded & dusted while simultaneously helping keep Josie dressed, changed, and cuddled and helping keep me feel confident and reassured. Lou & I really appreciated all the help from Grandma and I also enjoyed spending the extra time together. This week is going to be the first week on my own, which should be interesting. Lou also has a trial this week so he won't be able to come home for lunch or be reached by phone, so I'm definitely getting thrown in head first. It will be good for me. Luckily, we have been blessed with a super-mellow, easy-going baby! :)

So, that's all for now. I'll be sure to check back in when I have some time. Wish me luck this week.

Love, Carri

Almost two weeks...

Today marks the two week "anniversary" of going into labor. This time two weeks ago, I had just started to have regular surges (contractions) again & decided to keep them to myself until I was sure it was in fact "the real thing". Manda was in Xenia with the rest of the family - everyone waiting to find out if Josie would bless us with her presence before Manda & Michael had to go back to Chicago on Sunday. Thank goodness she did!

I still need to sit down & write our full "birth story" (which I plan to do this weekend). I'll be sure to post it here when I do. I also have some great labor photos that my sister took at the hospital that I'll post as a link for those of you who want to take a trip to LaborLand. While I'm listing other things that are "coming soon," I've almost got the slide show together that shows all the photos Lou took of my growing belly every couple of weeks during the pregnancy. It's just hysterical (and miraculous) to see how big it was! I also have more photos from this week that I will post on Sunday to the online album and my thoughts on how this week went (Lou went back to work & my mom was here to save the day). So, lots of things to come...be sure to check back soon.

Here's a picture to hold everyone over until I post more this weekend. Josie is already "daddy's little girl." :)

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog! Lou & I will be updating it as regularly as we can. We figured we'd give you the option to immerse yourself in our baby's life rather than making that decision for you with daily emails. :) So, feel free to stop by here as often as you like. Also check out some of our favorite links on the left, including Cat & Brandon's new baby blog, which inspired this one.

Photos

Here's the link to the photos taken by the hospital folks. (These are the same photos that we sent out in our original email.)

http://www.our365.com/WebNursery/WebNursery/BabyFinder/BabyFinder.aspx

Under "Search by Family" Just enter in her birthdate (Aug. 11, 2007), first three letters of my last name (Sch), state, etc. and it will take you to the photos.


Here's the link to the most recent photos we've added to Shutterfly. You do need to provide an email address to view the photos, but I promise they won't send a bunch of stuff to your inbox.

http://josiemarie.shutterfly.com/action/