Merry Christmas from the Schreiners!!!

We took our Christmas pictures this week. Leo wasn't feeling too well because of his croup, but we still managed to get a few good ones. We originally wanted Cooper in the picture, but with all the excitement of us sitting on the floor next to him and grandma & grandpa visiting he was completely freaking out! Hopefully he will be able to pull himself together a bit more for next year's family photo!

Here are our favorite silly shots:

4 Month Old Monkey Baby

Where does the time go? Leo is now 4 months old! He can now jump in his jumperoo which delights him to no end. We call him a little Monkey these days because he absolutely loves to be bounced and swung around - the higher the better. There is no need to be gentle with this little boy! Leo can bear weight on his legs now and loves to be walked around the house. He can also scoot some when he is laying on his belly. An early crawler maybe? Who knows, but it seems that he is never where I left him when I come back into the room!
Here are a few in his jumperoo.

At 4 months Leo is 14 pounds and 25 3/4 inches long. Like his Daddy, he is long and skinny. As I mentioned before there was a little bit of concern regarding his weight, but the Dr. is no longer worried at all. Leo gained 6 ounces and grew 1/4 of an inch in 2 weeks with the addition of rice cereal! We have now been approved to start Stage 1 foods too!

As for Leo's health issues, the reflux reared it's ugly head again. Leo was on Zantac & Previcid and doing wonderfully. The Dr. took him off of the Zantac after 2 weeks of both meds. Typically, after 2 weeks the Previcid has kicked in and the Zantac is no longer needed. About a week after taking Leo off of the Zantac we saw major problems. (Crying during feedings, refusing food all together, crying for hours, etc) The Dr. agrees that Leo needs two medications to keep the reflux at bay. We got the impression that he has never had a patient who needed both the Zantac and the Previcid. Leave it to Leo!

Leo is continuing to do much better on the new formula. At his 4 month appointment they took another round of blood to test for food allergies. Again, the blood test can give a false negative, but if something comes back positive at least we will be ahead of the game. Leo gave that lab tech a run for her money! We warned the lab tech before she inserted the needle that he was very strong but I don't think she believed us. When she was done she said that he was the strongest little one she has ever had!

Leo managed to catch his first virus....He has croup, poor little guy barks when he coughs. Dr. said he should feel better by the end of this week.

Many people continue to ask how Cooper has adjusted to life with Leo. Let me just say that Charlie and I have NO doubt that those two will be thick as thieves when Leo gets bigger. Leo stares and stares at Cooper and will reach out to pet him on the nose whenever he can. Cooper loves this and takes any opportunity that he can to get in Leo's face and give him a big sloppy kiss.

And, in case any one cares about the rest of the family :)....Charlie finished up his fall semester of graduate school. It was a tough class and he is very happy to have it over and done with. Word of advice, don't try graduate school, full time work and an infant all at once...it's makes for a hard semester! I am very happy to report that I have lost my baby weight! I still have more I want to lose and I certainly need to "tone" up more, but the pounds are slowly melting away.

Here's a couple more of Leo from his 4th month.

Leo's First Picture with Santa!

Leo had his first picture with Santa today and did wonderful!

It's Snowing!!!!

Leo in his first snow!!

Thanksgiving & Rice Cereal

Leo made his first long car trip for the Thanksgiving holiday to the New Orleans area. We stayed with Leo's Great Grandmother and had Thanksgiving dinner at Tim & Louise's lovely home (His Great Aunt & Uncle). Leo was quite a charmer and behaved wonderfully!

I noticed on this trip that some pants that used to fit Leo well were a bit looser in the waist so the following Tuesday I brought him in for a weight check. Luckily, he had not lost any weight, but he had only gained half an ounce (Now 13 lbs 10 ounces). On a hunch, I asked them to measure him to see if he had grown at all, and I was right, Leo put on an inch in one month. He is now 25.5 inches long!

Dr. LaCour decided the best plan of action was to put rice cereal in 3 of his 5 bottles each day to give him some more calories. Leo loves these bottles!! He also suggested that we try spoon feeding him rice cereal...this did not go over quite as well. I'm not sure if it's the taste or the texture, but something about it makes him grimace every time. We tried a couple of days with no success, so we will try again next week.

We go back to the Dr. for Leo's 4 month well baby check in about 2 weeks. Hopefully he will have put on some more weight by then!

3 Month Old Inch Worm

What a funny little guy we have! Leo giggles like crazy (sweetest sound I have ever heard) and makes the goofiest little sounds. He squeals and babbles to us and his toys. His favorite games are airplane, helicopter and the hokey pokey. He still loves his activity gym. He was recently introduced to his jumperoo which he has a lot of fun with as well. At 3 months he is 13 lbs 9.5 ounces and 24.5 inches long.

Leo rolled over more times from his belly to back, and once from back to belly. He can also hold up his head unassisted and bring his hands together.


The biggest news this month was that Leo graduated from sleeping in our room in his bassinet to sleeping in his own room in his crib. One morning Charlie's alarm clock woke Leo up; that was when we knew it was time to move him!! He has done great in his crib so far and never seemed bothered by the move at all. In fact, given his new wiggle worm status it seems that he may like it even more than the bassinet.

So we had made the decision, Leo would no longer be in our room, he was ready to be on his own. We rocked Leo to sleep, laid him down and snuck out of the nursery. We then promptly went to our bedroom to watch him on the video monitor. Leo slept peacefully and Charlie and I drifted to sleep watching him on the monitor. We each woke up periodically to check on him. A few hours later Charlie woke up and looked on the monitor and was surprised to see that there was no baby there. After a brief moment of panic he realized what had happened; Leo had moved! See, the camera was only getting one half of the crib and Leo had wiggled himself (still in his swaddle) to the other half of the crib. Our little inch worm not only wiggled down to the other end, but he turned himself around and wiggled back to the side he started on. After a few nights of this we repositioned the camera so that it views the entire crib. He still inches around his crib each night, you never know where he will end up!

On the allergy front, Leo is doing better. His first round of allergy test came back negative. This was great news, but it was also a bit inconclusive. A blood test only tests for one way that our bodies react to allergens, so you can test negative on the blood test and then test positively on a skin prick test (which we can't do until Leo is 2). We talked to the Dr. about the results and the improvements we had seen since Stubby, our cat, had left the house. He agreed that if we had seen an improvement we should keep the cat out, there was no reason to take a chance of Leo backtracking. Since the milk allergy test had come back negative Dr. La Cour told me to go ahead and have a glass of milk and see how Leo reacted to my breast milk afterwards.

So that Friday I had my first glass of milk in 6 weeks...yummmm!!! Saturday Leo had my milk and Sunday he had a rash. :( I decided at that point that it was time to give it up, I had managed against every odd to breastfeed Leo for 3 months. Now that Leo could make his own antibodies I knew it would be better for him to get 100% on formula so we could try to isolate the cause of his diarrhea and rashes.

Charlie had a corn allergy as a child and I was starting to wonder if corn could be another source of Leo's issues. It sort of made sense, the first time we saw blood in his stool was after he was started on a daily vitamin supplement that contained corn syrup. Then he was placed on formula that contained corn. He continued to have episodes of bloody stool and then began having diarrhea with every feeding. His stool was cultured and it came back negative so we knew it wasn't an infection. I laid out the timeline with Dr. LaCour and he agreed that a corn allergy was a definite possibility with everything I had seen. We switched Leo to Similac Alimentum Ready to Feed (the ONLY corn free formula on the market, it's also free of Cow's milk protein) and saw immediate improvement. No more diarrhea!!! His eczema still flares up here and there, but we are able to manage it with the steroid ointment.

The reflux is also under better control with the new medication, though it took a little longer than usual for it to kick in. All in all, we are really pleased with the progress Leo is making under the new pediatrician.

Here are some pictures-enjoy!

Happy Halloween!!

Our Little Pumpkin.



Our little man rolled over on November 1st! Of course, he only did it for mama and hasn't done it since. :)

I am thrilled to report that Leo has a new pediatrician, Dr. LaCour, and Leo is finally getting some relief. Over the last couple of weeks Leo's eczema continued to get worse and worse. Our first pediatrician was very nice, but he was not aggressive enough and Leo was suffering because of it. Dr. LaCour prescribed a steroid lotion that has done wonders for Leo's rashes and also ordered blood work. The blood work is testing for sensitivities to environmental allergens (pets, dust, tress, etc..) and milk. We should receive the results at the end of this week. He also gave us a stronger acid reflux medication and we are starting to see some improvement in Leo's feedings. Lesson learned? LISTEN TO YOUR INSTINCTS!!! I had been thinking of getting a second opinion for weeks. I am glad I finally did and wish I would have done it sooner.

I'll post more pictures soon!