The Jones Girls

We are home from Maryssa’s surgery today. She was a champ going into the OR room. It just put tears in my eyes, I was so proud of my baby!! However, coming out of surgery wasn’t the same for her. She  was out of control in pain, confusion and anger. They gave her 3 rounds of Morphine and that didn’t even touch her anxiety and pain.   It took Cliff, me and the nurse to keep her from pulling out her IV and trying to roll off the bed in the recovery room. This went on for 45 minutes. Finally after countless humming of her favorite nursery rhymes, soothing rubs and lots of cuddling, I coaxed her into taking tiny bits of popsicle. She slowly calmed down. She held her little popsicle for 1 hour as I continued giving her pieces of other popsicles provided to me continuously from the nurses. We were able to go home after 2 hours in the recovery room. She is now sleeping here at home. She is going to have a rough 2-3 days I expect – UGH. The surgeon diagnosed lots of Tylenol with Codeine for her.

We take Amanda to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles tomorrow. She will see the surgeon, get her bandages removed, get cleaned up and the new thumb will be evaluated. I hope everything goes ok for her
tomorrow. I have lots of Tylenol with Codeine for Amanda too. I tell you, I have never had so much of this Codeine around in my house before, but I guess it is to be expected with 2 kids having back to back surgeries. I am glad we got them done that way we can enjoy Halloween and the upcoming Holidays.

I thank God for all of our Blessings he has bestowed on us. Praise God my girls came out of surgery ok. That was my scariest thing was making sure they made it through surgery. Anesthesia is so scary to me.

If recoveries go well for the girls this week, this Friday I am taking a Mom’s Night Out for myself. My sister Nadine will be joining me.   This has been a tough couple of weeks for me.  We are planning on
seeing the movie “Women” and maybe going to a Japanese restaurant and having sushi.

Today Amanda surgery at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.  Her orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Joan Wright, performed a surgery called “pollicization“.    Amanda’s index finger was shortened, imposed and positioned into the thumb position to become a new thumb.  Her middle finger will now become her index finger.  

The surgery lasted 3 hours.   We arrived at 7:45am and she was rolled into surgery at 10:45am.     We met her in the recovery room immediately after surgery.  She slept in recovery for over an hour.    She was given Zofran to help stop nausea and vomiting.   We arrived home at 5:30pm.

when we got home, she was laughing and began running around with her sisters.   She was in a little pain so we gave her Tylenol and Codeine tongiht for pain.   When she got home, she ate a popsicle, an ice cream drumstick, 2 sippy cups of apple juice, and string cheese.    So far her recovery is going great.  She is now sleeping in mommy and daddy’s bed.   

We have a follow-up appointment this Tuesday September 20th at 11am.     The bandages will be taken off, her hand cleaned and she will be fitted with a special brace for her thumb.   

We are so excited for Amanda.    We are so  proud of our little Amanda.  She continues to show and teach us how precious life is.   Our hope and belief is this very important surgery will give Amanda the ability to have pincher reflex and it will offer her so much more opportunities in her life.    Dr. Wright said she will follow Amanda’s progress every year till she is about 18 years old.

Cliff and I celebrated out 10th wedding anniversary last night.   We went to go out to dinner and celebrate our anniversary.   Our favorite restaurant that is “our spot” is Benihana’s.    Our Sweet Sasha babysat our girls and we left the house at about 8pm.  We first went to Fry’s Electronics to pick out our anniversary present.  We purchased a new 2-line phone system for our house.  It is awesome!!    Then at about 9:15pm we cruised over to Benihana’s.  The moon was full, bright and gorgeous.  As we approached the restaurant, we noticed there were no cars in the parking lot.  We drove into the parking lot and we were shocked and disappointed to see a wire fence wrapped around the whole property.   It looked like a huge construction site.  My heart sank into my feet.  This was “our special place”.    So then we decided we would go have dinner at BStuart Anderson’s lack Angus.  We arrived there at about 10pm.    We got out of the car and we were met at the door with some stunning news that they changed their hours.  The closed at 10pm on Friday nights.  What steak house closes that early on a Friday night?    We get in our car and I call my girlfriend who owns the best sushi Japanese restaurant in town.    She had a slow night so she closed at 10pm.   Well, 3 strikes and we were out!!   We didn’t get to go to dinner and to be truthful, we were so tired by 10:30pm, we just wanted to go home.  So we got home and relieved the babysitter.  We snuggled in bed together and watched Sam I Am.   What a fanstastic movie that was.  I cried my eyes out.

So here is a little history of our Big Day:

We got married in a beautiful New England Chapel in Poultney, VT on September 19, 1998.  It was Cliff’s dream to get married in the church he grew up in.  So it was so wonderful for me to plan our special wedding and make his dreamcome true.   My childhood best friend, Deidre, was my Maid of Honor.  Cliff’s close friend and mentor, Bart, was his Best Man.  Lauren was our flower girl.  My mom was my only relative who came out for the wedding.  No one gave me away at my wedding.      It was a very beautiful and traditional wedding.    I had the wedding march going down the isle and we had Pachel Canon playing at the end of our wedding ceremony when we walked down the isle from the alter.  We had a flutist and a pianist play the music.   The church bells rung announcing the confirmation of our wedding.   What an incredible memory….

Cliff also had a dream of staying at the Lake St. Catherine Inn.  When he was a boy, he remembered all of the well-to-do folks stayed at The Lake St. Catherine Inn.  He hoped one day he would be able to stay there.  So, I made his dream become a reality.    We had our honeymoon at Lake St. Catherine.   We rented a beautiful lake-front cottage.   Our honeymoon was almost 2 weeks.  We rented a few rooms before our wedding and my mom, Deidre and I stayed in one room.  Cliff and Lauren stayed in another room.  We had our Wedding Rehearsal Dinner at The Lodge at the Lake St. Catherine Inn.   It was such a beautiful place. 

I am so proud that we have made such a beautiful and productive life together.   We can’t imagine life without each other.  We are true partners, best friends and love each other to pieces.    Our lives are stressful and we are constantly working on making things better for ourselves as well as for our relationship.  

We both have grown and learned so much in the 10 years we have been married.   We have learned that compromise and mutual respect are vital keys to make our relationship last.    “Sensitivity Lessons” are always in session in our relationship 🙂

We are both looking forward to celebrating another 10 more years for our 20th Wedding Anniversary.     We respect our wedding vows and take them very seriously.    

I love you with all of my heart, Clifford Charles Jones.  I am so proud to be your wife and for you to be my husband.  Thank you for loving me and giving me the wonderful life we have.   Thank you for loving me so much and giving my the GREATEST gift of all – our 4 daughters.  I am so Blessed by  God to have you in my heart.    We are soul mates and will continue our journey in Heaven one day together.  That is what marriage is all about…..

On Wednesday, Sept. 17th, I took all 4 girls to Chuck E. Cheese  in La Miranda for their first time.     I signed up for Chuck E. Cheese coupons and they e-mailed me a couple of great coupons which I used that night.    My friend, Victoria, brought her 3 year old daughter, Sophia and her 1-1/2 year old daughter, Juliana with her.   We all had a blast.  What a great place for kids. 

The triplets loved to ride on the cars.  Savannah enjoyed those too, but she really enjoyed some of the games there.  There was a cute Duckie Game and a cute Bumble Bee where she got to earn tickets for making good points on the games. 

Cliff joined us and played with the girls and then we had dinner together.   It was so neat seeing how much fun my girls were having with their daddy!!   We order pizza and drinks.  Their pizza was very good. 

I am thinking we might have Savannah’s 5th birthday party here.

The triplets love their baby bottles.   They love sucking on a bottle of milk and drift off to sleep for nap time or bed time watching a little Dora the Explorer or Baby Einstein.   I have been able to keep them on the same bed schedule for over a year now.      I have slowly been weaning them from their bottles.

In my experience with Savannah weaning from her bottle, she weaned herself at 14 months.  It was so easy and no big deal.    One morning she was so frustrated trying to get more fluid than the bottle would allow she threw the bottle across the room and she was done with bottles.  I handed her a sippy cup and she was so happy to be able to take a bigger gulp of fluid.    An important thing that I have observed between Savannah and the triplets with baby bottles is that toddlers still have a need to suck.   Savannah was so easy to let go of the bottle because she sucked her thumb and had her “Fi Fi” (blanket).     She was never into pacifiers.  The triplets don’t suck their thumb and aren’t into pacifiers.    I believe the Triplets have have a much harder time weaning from the bottle is because they love to suck on the bottle and since they don’t suck their thumbs or pacifiers, than the bottles are what they like to suck on.      I truly believe that most toddlers at age 2-3 will either be thumb suckers, pacifier suckers or bottle suckers.   

A couple of months ago I began this process.   I only allowed them to drink milk or juice & water out of , sippy cups during /the day.  I would let them have their bottles for nap time in bed as well as for bed time.  I would also let them have a midnight bottle too.   

On Thursday night Sept. 18th, I didn’t let them have a night time bottle.  They cried all night long.  It was a rough night.   I didn’t sleep all night and Cliff had to go sleep in his office at about 2am.   Yesterday I didn’t let them have their nap time bottle.  They cried for a bit and finally fell asleep.    Last night they did a little bit better without their bottles.  Today nap time was a little bit better than yesterday.   Tonight they are doing a little better than last night.   Maryssa is still awake and playing around in their room.  She will evenutally get the idea and fall asleep.

I give them a sippy cup of milk after dinner and they drink about 4-6 oz.    I give them a sippy cup of milk in the morning when they wake up and they drink 2-5 oz.   During the afternoon I give them sippy cups of diluted applejuise 50/50 and they sip for 1-2 hours about 6oz.   Also I offer them my glass of iced water throughout the day to give them practive with a regular cup.  So we are on our way to big girl cups now.

I have been having problems with them having extremily sopping wet diapers in the morning when they were drinking bottles at night time.   Miranda was getting really bad rashes from being in the wet diaper over night.   I have noticed that their diapers are much drier now and I think they will be much more comfortable in the middle of the night now.  Hopefully Miranda’s rash will now disappear.

With this idea of ditching the bottles and them having drier diapers at night, my next step is to start potty training them.    It was a bit difficult to grasp and tackle the potty training when they were still drinking  night time bottles and peeing about 18 oz woth of milk during the night.   So with no fluids after 7:00pm, hopefully I can start approaching the prospect of potty training them.

Thursday, September 14, the triplets had their 2 year check up with Dr. Gonzalez.     They received their vaccinations and won’t require anymore until they go to Kindergarten  ( yay ! )

Amanda is in the 75th percentile and weighs in at 29 1/2 lbs and is 34 1/2 inches tall.    My tiniest baby at birth is not the tallest.    She continues to amaze us all and constantly shows us her strong will to live.  Amanda can talk in 2-3 word phrases and understands commands and instruction.   She says cute things like “No Way” for no and “Yep” for yep.    She always cracks me up when she talks.

Miranda is in the 100+ percentile and weighs in at 30 1/2 lbs and is 34 inches tall.    She is showing signs that she may have a little eczema.  I have to put a special cream on little dry, red patchy areas and use a heavy cream on her skin daily.  Miranda is the best communicator of the bunch.  She can speak in 2-4 word sentences and can understand instruction and commands.  

Maryssa is in the 50th percentile and weighs in at 24 1/2 lbs and is 32 inches tall.   Her size at birth made her the middle sized baby.  She is now the smallest one of my trio.    I expressed my concerns about how small she is for a 2 year old.  The dr. said Maryssa has the healthiest BMI and percentile for her age than the other girls and not to worry that she is smaller.    Maryssa doesn’t talk as much as the other girls.   She is passive and lets everyone speak for her.  She is very intelligent and blew us all away when she picked up a ABC book and sighted all of the letters correctly by their names as well as numbers 1,2,3.  She also doesn’t call animals by there names, but by the sound the animal makes.   When she sees a duck she says quack, quack.  When she sees a dog she says ruff, ruff.    

Things that we are looking into:

Miranda’s dry skin and little red rashes

Maryssa will be getting a hearing evaluation and a speech evalutation because when we call her name, she doesn’t come to us or turn around.  We want to make sure she doesn’t have any hearing problems, although, at birth in the NICU her hearing test came out fine and if I whisper something to her, she will repeat what I say.   This may be just selective hearing and not paying attention to what we are saying.     Also, I want to make sure she doesn’t have any impairment for speech. 

On Wednesday, September 13th, Amanda had an evaluation for Occupational Therapy at Woodcrest with a wonderful therapist named Michelle.   I took all of the triplets.     The evaluation went from 11am-1:00pm.     Amanda will be receiving Occupational Therapy after her thumb reconstruction surgery, probably at the end of October or early November.  She will be going once a week for 45 minutes.  The facility is located in Fullerton.   Our goals for Amanda will be to work on her fine motor skills, helping her find her center line since one arm is slight shorter than the other, helping her button, zip, etc. 

Amanda was receiving Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy from Regional Center of Orange County, a non-profit organization that offers in-home therapy for children 3 and under that are developmentally behind.    Amanda was evaluated in June by Kim, her physical therapist, and the report stated Amanda was no longer delayed and was developmentally at her age.    The occupational therapist, Deborah, will be evaluating Amanda this week and she will be report that Amanda is no longer delayed and is developmentally at the correct age now.   This is such a huge and wonderful goal that Amanda has met.   She was receiving therapy since she was just a few months old.