The Jones Girls

Lately the triplets have been climbing on the bar stools in the kitchen wanting to sit down on them.  So I have been allowing them to practice sitting on them and they would sit on them for longer and longer periods of time.    I then started letting them do their drawing, coloring and artwork on the kitchen peninsula on their bar stools.  

Than last week I sat all of them down and fed them breakfast for the first time while they were sitting on the bar stools at the peninsula in the kitchen.  We have a flat screen TV in the kitchen that has satellite and a DVD player.   So I let them watch Sesame Street in the morning and they eat their breakfast while I am drinking my coffee, making Savvy’s lunch for preschool and load/unload the dishwasher and clean up.   

This has been such a huge and wonderful change for me and for them.   I can prepare their meals in the kitchen while they all sit down at the counter.   Previously, I would have to prepare their meals in the kitchen, then load them all up in booster seats at the dining room table, put bibs on, then bring all of their meals out one by one.  Then after they ate I would have to clean them, unload them from the booster chairs, clean the booster chairs, dining room table and floor.   Talk about time consuming.   So now there is no booster seats and I help them climb up and I prepare their food and had it to them right there at the counter/peninsula table.

I do have to do a little sweep up under the bar stools and tidying up, but it is so much easier than cleaning up all around and underneath the dining room table, chairs,  hardwood, and booster seats.

I have also got them trained to eat their snacks at a little picnic table I have in the den for them.  All 4 girls will eat their snacks and watch TV.  Sometimes I will let them have little cups of dry cereal in the morning if I am straightening up the den and I will let them eat at the picnic table in the den and watch TV.

I have been really working with Miranda on potty training this week.  For the past few days she has been peeing 50% in the potty chair and 50% wearing diapers during the day and wearing diapers at night.  Today she has not worn a diaper at all and she has peed on the potty chair and has not had any accidents.  She also pooped in the potty chair for the first time today.  I am so proud of her.   She walked in, said she had to poop, sat on her potty chair and pooped. Just like that!!  I am hoping she will potty train fully in the next couple of weeks.  She has plenty of cute little panties that she loves to wear.  

Amanda and Maryssa are sort of potty training but they are going to take a little longer.  Every time Miranda sits on the potty chair they like to sit down too so hopefully they might learn from Miranda.  My goal is to have everyone potty trained by the Fall 2009 before they start preschool.   The preschool requires them to be potty trained.  They would be going to preschool twice a week in the mornings.

Just a couple of days ago Miranda had taken off her diaper in her room.  She had pooped in her diaper and didn’t want to have the poopy diaper on her.  When she took it off the poop got everywhere.   Ugh.  It was so gross.   So hopefully we are seeing the end of diapers for her soon!!

When I was driving the triplets home from Amanda’s Occupational Therapy appointment yesterday, someone hit us.   I was on Euclid and Chapman in Fullerton and stopped at a red light.   I always look in my rear view mirror when I stop to see if the person behind me is stopping.   This is a reflex action after I got rear ended back in 1990 – what a bad accident that was!! 

Anyway, as I was looking in the rear view mirror, this black Toyota car kept on driving and not stopping.   I got nervous.  I assessed my surroundings to see if I could get out of her way but there were cars all around me.  So I prayed to God for protection, pressed my foot hard on the break, and I held on tight to the steering wheel with anticipation that we were being hit.   I focused my vision on my triplets in the back seat praying…   Wham!!  We were hit pretty bad in the rear.  She must have been going 30 mph.    I jolted forward even in my seat belt, but I was ok.  The girls jolted forward but were ok.  Thank God.  Savannah was in preschool safe and sound.  Again, thank God.

Then she got out of her car to assess the damage to her car.  She didn’t ask if I was ok or say sorry.   I told her I had triplet babies in car seats in my car.  I was so mad that she didn’t even ask if they were ok or check on any of us.  This girls was 18-20 years old.   I bet she was talking on the phone or text messaging.

I called Cliff to see if he was home.  I told him to get here and bring a camera and told him we were ok and what happened.  Then I called 911 to have the police come and the paramedics to check all of us out.   They were there in a few minutes and checked us all out.  My neck and lower back were sore.  The triplets all check out fine.  The paramedics told me a baby in a car seat is safer in a accident than an adult in a seat belt.   Very interesting…

The police took a report.  I didn’t even want to talk to get the girl, she was acting like the victim.  She stated she had a head concussion 2 days before the accident.   She called someone on her phone, probably her boyfriend and I heard her say that she wasn’t paying attention and hit us.  I should have gotten her insurance and driver’s license info but my girls needed me in the car.   I figured all of this would be noted on the police report.   it was a new car so I am sure she had insurance.  If not, we have uninsured motorist coverage on my insurance policy to protect us. 

Cliff arrived and immediately check on the triplets.  He then took pictures of both of our cars, the street, etc.   He assessed my car and said my tail pipe was destroyed but I could drive home slowly and carefully not going over 35-40mph.   So the police officer stopped traffic so I could get out of there.  I drove home carefully and I noticed when it was approaching 40mph the car would shimmy. 

I called the insurance agent and then picked up a minivan car rental from Enterprise.  Today I am taking our minivan into our mechanic who also a body shop as well.

Thank God we are all ok.  I am sore but will be alright.

Amanda saw her Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr. Wright, at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles twice in November.  Both appointments the doctor said she is very impressed with Amanda’s recovery and she has exceeded expectations on how well Amanda is beginning to use her new thumb.  

Amanda has some stiffness in her thumb and the dr. said this is to be expected and in time as she begins to use it, the thumb will bend and be less stiff.   She said it can take up to one or two years for her thumb to be functional.

Amanda’s thumb looks amazing and Cliff and I are so happy we made the decision for Amanda to have this surgery.

I met with Maryssa’s case worker, Melanie, with Regional Center Early Intervention.  Maryssa has been approved for in-home private speech therapy once a week for an hour by a well known speech therapist in the area, Erica McBride.   She receives therapy every Tuesday at 5:30pm one – one with Erica.  I will feed the girls while Maryssa receives therapy.  This will be a good thing that way Maryssa will be able to focus and not be distracted by her sisters.   She was supposed begin Nov. 18th but we had an appointment glitch so we will begin Nov. 25th. 

Amanda is now receiving Occupational Therapy for her new thumb.   She had her first therapy session with her therapist, Michelle, on November 5th.  We take Amanda every Wednesday for 45 minutes for occupational therapy.  She does really well.    The drive is almost 30 minutes away but I will drive anywhere to help my kids!!

Halloween was so much fun this year.  The week before Halloween I took her down to Children’s Museum of La Habra and we carved a pumpkin and then we did a wind sock in the shape of a bat.  Our friends,  Victoria and her daughter, Sophia, joined us.   The museum offers this every year.  It is free.   They have really cool stensiles, all of the carving tools and the tables are covered to keep things cleaned.  Their craft room where we made the bat had all free materials so we could make the windsocks.   We are so lucky to have this place in our community!!

The weather in the last 2 weeks of October has been HOT.   We are talking mid to upper 90’s every day.  It certainly didn’t feel like autumn weather here!!  I didn’t want to get the girls costumes that made them too hot but when they trick or treated at night I wanted them to be warm.  So we decided to do 2 different costumes.   All 4 girls were ballerinas.  They looked so precious in their pink tutus and matching ballet slippers.   Their costumes for the evening of Halloween for trick or treating were Minnie Mouses.

In the morning I took the girls to the La habra Heights 30th anniversary celebration at the LHH park.   They had pony rides, bouncy houses, petting zoos, hay rides and fun activities.   Everything was complimentary.   We had so much fun.  The girls rode the ponies twice!! 

In the afternoon, we attended a Halloween party at Presbyterian Hospital in Whittier (PIH) for the annual NICU party.   They had a really fun bubble mania where the kids could make life size bubbles.   They looked so cute…4 ballerinas making all of these bubbles.

In the evening we attended our La Habra Mom’s Club annual Halloween party at my friend Fay’s house.   We had a costume parade, played games, ate yummy appetizers and enjoyed every one’s company.  It was a lot of fun.

I was supposed to take thre triplets to Savannah’s Halloween party at preschool but I was sick.  Savannah was a ballerina at school.  I ate some tamales my neighbor brought over and got really sick.  I think it was food poisoning.  So I was out of commission and couldn’t do anything.  I felt much better the day of Halloween thank goodness.    So mommy and daddy took our 4 adorable Minnnie mouses out for trick or treating in their choo choo wagon.   They filled their pumpkins with candy!!   The neighborhood was the busiest with bustling trick or treating that I can remember in the 10 years that I have lived here.   I came home to give out candy and Cliff continued on with the girls to trick or treat.  It was so much fun!!