The Jones Girls

I can’t believe my babies are now 3!!     Where did the time go?  It was just yesterday that they were needing me so much more than today.   (((sigh)))

Cliff is still in Arkansas on business, but he managed to fly in for 24 hours to be us and celebrate birthdays today.

So where is the best place to celebrate their birthday?    How about DISNEYLAND!!!

All of us went to the Happiest Place on Earth.  We celebrated at Ariel’s Grotto where we had a delicious gourmet lunch and the girls got to meet and greet with all of the Disney Princesses.    They got cute treasure boxes filled with fun trinkets and a special birthday cake.     It was so much fun.

We ended Disneyland in the evening watching Fantasmic and then the spectacular Fire Works Show.     We had to head out by 10:30pm to drive Cliff back to the airport by 11:30 so he could get on his 1:00am flight back to Arkansas.   

God Bless you Ciff for giving me the BEST and most LOVING gift ever…our precious little girls.    My gift to you for your birthday 3 years ago was giving birth to you precious baby girls.   

Happy Birthday to each of you.   I love you with all of my heart and I will love you Forever and Ever….

On Tuesday I took all 4 girls to Children’s Hospital for Amanda’s 6 month follow up appointment with Dr. Joan Wright.    This was to check on Amanda’s progress with her thumb since her surgery in September of last year.

The Dr. says she thinks Amanda might need another surgery to rotate the thumb bone to make it more in an “opposed” position.  She also wants to loosen the tendon/ligament in the new thumb to allow her to bend her knuckles of her new thumb.  Currently Amanda is not able to bend the knuckles of her new thumb.   Then Dr. Wright wants to transfer some tendons and ligaments from one part of her hand to her new thumb.  She said that Amanda would really benefit from this procedure.

We have another appointment in 4 months which is on October 20th.     We will confirm if we will do the surgery.  If we do the surgery, I would elect to do it right after Christmas and have the major recovery time be the 2nd week of Christmas break.     Amanda will be in preschool in the Fall and she will be out for the 2 weeks of Christmas break.

I trust Dr. Wright’s reommendations.   Her outlook on orthropedic surgery is to be the least invasive and offer the best quality of life for the patient which is exactly the same thing I want for Amanda.

Amanda was fitted for another new brace that she wears at night.     Amanda is using her hand really well and uses her new thumb about 50% of the time .   We are hoping this surgery might offer Amanda better movement for her new thumb.

Amanda has a hard time pulling down her panties and pants when she goes to the potty.   Most times I have to helpher.   I starte giving her a reward system to give her more encouragement to use her new thumb and centralized hand to pull down her panties and pull up her panties.  She gets a Skittle candy every time she successfully can pull her panties up and down.  So far it has been a successful reward system and she is trying each time now to pull down her panties and pull up her panties.

Amanda has not had any pee pee or poop accidents during the day or night.   She wears panties during the day at home.  When we are not at home, she wears a pull up just in case.    At night she wears a pull up just in case she has an accident in the middle of the night.

For the past week her pull up has been dry in the morning.  She is completely dry!!   So we are making a huge step and starting to have her go to bed with panties.    

In the next week I will see how she does wearing panties outside of the house.  If she can stay dry, then I think she will be fully graduated and considered fully potty trained.

I am so proud of our precious Amanda.    We love you so much sweetheart!!!

Yesterday I had a meeting to go over the results of the evaluations for Amanda and Maryssa with Ronita Van Vliet, Mrs Crabtree, the school psychologist Wendy Myers, Amanda’s caseworker for Early Start Services-Laura Beech and Maryssa’s case worker for her early intervention services-Melanie Bakken.

The results were that Amanda averaged 3.3-3.7   years developmentally.  She does not need to attend not qualifies for special education   The school district and Early Start wanted to do a global evaluation on her because of her disability of her club radial hand.  No concerns academically or developmentally.   Just continued OT for her right hand and arm.

Maryssa’s results were 2.1-2.4 years developmentally with a delay in receptive language.  Her expressive language has been catching up and I contribute my hard work with Maryssa and Maryssa currently receiving speech therapty once a week at the house.  Maryssa will continue to receive speech therapy twice a week for 3 minutes each session at Jordan Elementary School.     Maryssa did not qualify for Ronita Van Vliet’s special education class that Savannah had been attending these past 2 years.    Maryssa would have needed to be delayed in more than one year of just receptive language.    So I guess this is good news for Maryssa!!  Yay!! 

So, tomorrow I will confirm registration for the triplets to attend preschool together at Presbyterrian Hills Preschool near our house.   They will go Tuesday and Thursday mornings beginning in the Fall.

A couple of days ago we had a real fiasco here.   All of the girls were playing int he backyard.   Then I saw only 3 girls in the backyard.  Amanda was missing.  So I start going through the house looking for her.

Savannah runs in the house and screams for me that Amanda had locked herself in our master bathroom!!  So I run and open the door.    When I opened the door Amanda screams.  She slipped on the floor and split her bottom lip open. 

The floor was COVERED with slipper, oily, messy goop!!  I saw next to her on the floor was my empty bottle of expensive hair potion called BioSilk.  This stuff is more expensive per ounce than gasoline for your car!!    I quickly had to put that thought in the back of my mind and calm down Amanda.  

Once I got her lip stabilized, I talked to her about how dangerous it was to get into things without asking me first.      She was more upset than me, the poor little sweetie.

My floor is slippery every time we walk on it.   I have no idea how to fix it.    I think I will try Dawn detergent.   They say it cuts the grease out.  Maybe it will cut my hair potion out!!