Everything but the bagels

Way back at the end of March (I told you I was behind), we had a visit from our friends Cat & Brandon and there little lovelies Ronan (J's age) and Isla (almost one).  Cat, Brandon, Louie & I were all roommates in college BEFORE we were even dating.  Suffice it to say, if the cameras would've been rolling, it would've been the best season of "The Real World" in MTV history.  Also living with us that insanely-wonderful year was best friend and total soulmate Carrie (aka "Schmittee") who later acted as the doula at Josie's birth who will also be showing up again in the next blogpost and good ole' Danny whats-his-name who we're pretty sure went on to join the CIA.  The six of us all lived in this rat-hole apartment "Above Bagel & Deli" and I'll leave it at that for now.  When the Runyans came to visit from Madison, Carrie graciously offered to host one heckuva reunion (sans Danny) at her house.  It was the perfect way to relax with friends after a glorious sunny day at the zoo. Here are some photos from our reunion weekend.

Sharing a little Graeters with a little friend...

(I love how you can see both dad's hands holding their little legs.)

The "hitching a ride" series...

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Fountain Farewells

I'm sure this is the first of what will be several farewells to a favorite parts of the city. And while we will be really close to downtown still, it won't quite be the same when it isn't right outside of our door. For example, we've referred to Fountain Square as our backyard since we moved in. (Josie's surely going to wonder why parades and concerts don't happen in her backyard in the new house.) We have loads of pictures of Josie hanging out on Fountain Square since she was just a wee little thing.  Here are some of the more recent ones from a couple of weekends ago.  Enjoy.  (And get your buns down to Fountain Square if it's been awhile.)

Notice the bare feet. She is truly her mother's daughter...

 Not sure if the uber-wet tush comes across in the picture, but you're just gonna have to trust me. 

She was soaked!

 Daddy lends a hand with those tricky jelly-shoe clasps...

 Quite a backyard, isn't it?!

The Dream Home

We have a new house! We have a new house! We have a new house!  (At least we're pretty sure we do.)
As I told Lou, I'm about 88% ecstatic about our new house. I'll get 100% there when I get the keys.  The inspections are this week, so I'm hoping to be about 95% there by the end of the week.  I'll be sure to share the details as my level of excitement rises, but in the meantime here's a picture of our fully-restored Victorian beauty. We love her - pink door and all! :)

(Thanks to all of you for the well-wishes during this crazy process. It was a short sale, so it's been quite a roller coaster ride. Keep sending those good vibes our way as we get through the next few weeks of packing, moving, etc.)

Quick Quotes

Josie in the bathtub, playing with her tub alphabet: "Well, well, well...a 7 is an upside L...who knew?!"

Josie, pointing to the CD player: "Will you put on 'Rock Me Mama Like A Wagon Wheel'? I'm wanna rock out to that."

Buzz, Buzz

We have been a family of busy little bees the last couple of weeks.  I really have about 200 photos to sort through and share. And now that we're under contract on our condo, we're really busy trying to find our "dream home" so we can get under contract by April 30th to secure the tax credit. So, I'm hoping to play catch-up soon, but here are a couple of quick & random ones.

Josie's first rock-climbing wall at Sawyer Point:

The two of us at the Reds Opening Day parade:

Josie's first attempt at writing "Mom":

Our little lady "kickin it old school" with a bath in the sink:

(Little Stinker totally tricked me into this one. She was helping me wash dishes on a stool and it all went down something like this. "Mom, can I take off my shirt? It's getting wet"..."Uh-oh, my pants are getting wet. I should take these off"..."Oh no, wet socks, take them off mommy."  And then, no kidding, she pulled off her panties and swings her leg over the counter and in she goes!  Gotta love spontaneity!

Finally, I'll leave you with the way I found Venus the other afternoon, all decked out in some mardi gras beads. (Josie's comment to me: "Check out Venus' fashion.") LOL!

Eggs-ellent Weekend

Here are some photos from Easter - which started out with a very hectic Easter Egg Hunt in our downtown back-yard (a.k.a. "Fountain Square) and ended with a fantastic 24 hours of egg coloring & hunting, bike riding, and feasting with Grandma & DD. Here are some of my favorite shots from that weekend. Enjoy!

 

 

 

"Lyla Gets a Brudder"

BIG, BIG CONGRATS to Tia, Tio & Lyla who found out yesterday that they have a healthy baby BOY coming in August! In Josie's words, "Lyla gets a brudder! Lyla gets a brudder! Lyla gets a brudder!"  We couldn't be more excited for the Austins and can't wait to meet our new nephew. (Your right Manda; that does sound weird!)

There's no place like home....There's no place like home...

Everyone please join us for a big collective Hip Hip Hooray!!! After a good year-and-a-half of trying, we are finally UNDER CONTRACT!  In just 23 days, we will no longer own our downtown condo. It's certainly been a memorable five years, and while we are very excited about the sale (finally), we are sure that there will be lots of tears the day we leave. So, let the great house hunt begin!!  We love it here, but we're ready to find our new home and start the next phase of our lives.  Wish us luck!

[For those of you who tend to be a little more pragmatic, it might interest you to know that we don't actually have to move April 30th.  While we close that day and turn over the condo to its new owner, he has graciously offered to lease the condo back to us on a weekly basis until we find our new home.  Whew!]

Puddle-wonderful

We have so many joyous photos from the past couple of weeks to share. Here are just a few from Grandma Fifi and Grandpa Bop's house a couple of weekends ago.  Josie insisted on wearing a dress, skirt, and fairy costume all at the same time and of course she wore her favorite rain boots because it was quite a soggy day. Here are some of the photos of muddy fun that followed.  (I can still hear that giggle!)

Her name was Camille.

Last night, exactly three weeks after we lost our baby, we got the results of the DNA testing from our doctor.

We found out that our baby was a little girl, and we were going to name her Camille. The miscarriage was the result of a "spontaneous chromosomal abnormality" that was "incompatible with human life." In other words, our little Cam, or Cami, or Millie was never going to make it.  She had an extra set of chromosomes (69xxx) and her death in-utero was just a matter of time.  We feel very blessed that we found out that we lost our baby so early (at 11 weeks) instead of the more typical timeline with this type of chromosome abnormality that can occur late into the 2nd trimester.  Losing her was a terrible loss, but losing her at 20 weeks would've been much worse.  At this point, we are just happy that we had her as long as we did.

All-in-all, we remain grateful for what we have...optimistic for the future...thankful to everyone for the support...and in awe of the miracle of life.

Finally, some GREAT news

You know, if it weren't for the lows, then you couldn't appreciate the highs.  We all need the yin and the yang. So, the things on this list would normally just be good news, but in light of recent events, they are GREAT news to the Schneider family.

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.  

We got this letter just two days after her "interview" and we jumped up and down like she had just been accepted into Harvard! It's a little bittersweet that our baby girl is starting school in the fall, but she's ready and we know this is going to be a really special experience for her.

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!

Quick Quotes & Super Smiles

Leave it to Josie to bring the comic relief we needed over the past couple of weeks. Here are a few quick quotes and funny moments. Just for fun, I'm sprinkled in some great pics of our sweet little girl over the last week or so. Just try to get through this post without cracking a smile...

Carissa asked Josie what kind of boyfriend she should look for.  Josie's response: "One that is nice, pays attention, and is beautiful." 

Josie to Lou and I as she stuck a certain feminine hygiene product to the bottoms of her bare feet, "I'm going ice skating."  We obliged and were pretty impressed out how well they worked for "ice skating" across the bamboo floors. When she wins Olympic gold, I'll be sure to tell this story to Bob Costas in our interview.

Lou bought some My Little Ponies off of ebay for Josie and a friend to share. She was busy styling their hair because she said they were going somewhere. When I asked her where she said, "They're going to Pony Whole Foods." 

 

Josie to me from the backseat when she heard me telling Louie on the phone that I was totally lost: "Don't worry Mommy, you'll find it. Don't give up." 

Josie to me, "Mommy, can I have another smoochy candy?" (It took me a minute to figure out what she wanted was a Hershey's kiss.)

A couple of nights ago I was cuddling Josie before bed and she asked me if I was cold.  I said, "I'm not cold; I'm just cuddling you because I love you."  Then she said, "I love you, too. You're my best friend because you are my mommy." 

Last night, we were reading a book with an American flag in it. Josie pointed to it and said, "There's the Obama flag!"  (I can't tell you how proud I was about that one.)