The Jones Girls

Today we enrolled all 4 girls in Ballet classes at Adagio Dance.   Savannah used to have ballet classes here, but when Amanda’s surgeries came up in the past year and a half, and with the current economic crises, we put ballet on hold.

I got a letter from Adagio recently that waived registration fees for all girls and Miss Jennifer, the instructor, gave us an incredible deal to allow all 4 girls to take ballet lessons.   

The reason why I enrolled them in the class is to benefit each of them in the following way:

Miranda: to teach her to follow directions and sharpen her listening skills

Amanda:  to help her with her balancing issues and strengthen her overall core of her body

Maryssa:  to help her with her pigeon-toed-ness and to help her follow directions and sharpen her receptive language

Savannah: to help her with her mild muscle tone and coordination issues

The girls are having a blast and look forward to getting dressed up each week for class.   It is a lot of work for me, but a thousand times worth the effort!!

This is the true joy of having girls…seeing them float and prance like little princesses in their pink tutus and ballet slippers. There is nothing more precious…

I received some awesome coupons from Party City and it prompted me to go online and check out their costumes. I went to their store today.  Boy did they have tons of costumes to choose from. I wound up purchasing some “kits” and I am going to be making their costumes and adding the kits. I had some awesome coupons and wound up saving $30 on the costume kits.

My girls are big time into bugs these days…lady bugs, bees, butterflies, centipedes, worms, ants, etc. They originally all asked to be monkeys and then they changed their minds and asked if they could be bugs for Halloween.

This is what they will be:
Savannah will be the Queen Bee
Amanda will be the Butterfly
Miranda will be the Bumble Bee
Maryssa will be the Lady Bug

The outfits will have leotards, tutus, tights, wings, antennas, boa fur on the cuffs and neckline and a puffy ball on their dressy shoes.   I will be doing some sewing and using my creativity to make their costumes.  I priced the pre-made costumes and they are outrageously priced.  So I am going to hand make mine and I think mine are going to be even cuter and 100% better quality.  

The girls saw their costume kits today which consist of the wings and the antennas.  They loved them and are so excited.

So I am stating to cut the 50% off coupons from Joann’s Fabrics and that will be a huge savings for me to do the costumes.  I can’t wait to get started!!

Savannah made the late bird class – yay!! She goes from 10:10am-1:30pm. This works great for me because I have more time in the morning to get the girls ready for their day plus get a little house cleaning done.

We do lots of flash cards and practice writing her name and other words. She is learning to read site words now. She knows 2 word colors by sight now – RED and GREEN. We are working on upper case and lower case letters and she knows them all by sight and sound. I have flash cards with all of our names on them and she now knows them by sight. I then have her write each of our names down, including her last name too. She is doing very well at this.

She knows all of her numbers up to 30. 1-10 by sight and most of her teens but gets a couple confused and most of her 20’s up to 30.

I ordered some books from Scholastic from her school. They had a packet of 20 books that focus on sight words so I ordered them for Savvy. We do reading every night together. She loves to read together and so do the triplets.

She has a tendency to talk without raising her hand so we are all working on teaching her to learn to raise her hand and wait her turn to speak.

They get one snack at 10:30am and she loves her cheese and crackers and orange juice.

I LOVE her teacher, Miss Tarbell. She is a wonderful Christian and is very patient and kind.

Savannah’s Kindy curriculum is high academic and we get about 1-1.5 hours of homework a night. Reading writing, sorting, grouping, coloring, cutting, pasting, and flash cards every night.

Can you imagine what it is going to be like with the triplets go to Kindy? YIKES!!  I hope they get Miss Tarbell.

Homeschooling Preschool for the triplets is going well.  The tuition was over our heads since Cliff took a 50% pay cut at the beginning of the year. I have a tutor come in for an hour on Mon and Wed. I give her the assignments and she does them along with allowing them to take breaks and play. This gives me an hour to run errands or get caught up on housework. It is only 2 hours a week, but that is all I can afford and it is a good way to begin introducing the triplets to someone else teaching them. If our finances are better in January, I will put the triplets in preschool for 2 mornings a week for 3 hours each day. I am not too worried about preschool because they just turned 3 last month. I am going to make sure they will be in PreK next year 3 days a week for sure.

The triplets know most of their colors. Maryssa knew her ABC’s by sight and sound since she was 18 mos and the other 2 have known for about 6 months. They know most of all of the shapes and know most of the primary colors. They can count to 10.

I am going to start taking all of the girls to the library once a week. The triplets are just about finished tearing up and damaging books and they understand to respect books so I think we are ready for the library. I have a pretty extensive home library since Savannah was in preschool the last 2 years before Kindy. I was able to order her books through Scholastic at Preschool so I have built up quite a library of classics and popular kids books. Over 1/3 of them are damaged from the triplets ruining them in the past couple of years so I will be replacing them this year through Scholastic.

So we are plugging along here.

The girls have been learning how to emulate and copy dance routines from different shows like Fantasmic at Disneyland.   I have been thinking for a while that they would love to be in dance class.    The problem is with 4 girls in dance, it can be pretty expensive.

I got a coupon in the mail today from Savannah’s old Ballet Dance Studio, Adagio Dance. They are offering waiving the registration fee and offering a hefty discount for ballet and dance classes.

There was a schedule of classes included with the coupon and Pre Combo Ballet & Tap for 2-3 yo’s (triplets) and Pre Combo & Tap for 4-5 yo’s (for Savvy) are Friday nights 6:45-7:15 for the triplets class and 7:15-7:45 for Savvy’s class.  Wow, I could take all of them in one swoop, who could have planned that schedule any better?

Now mind you, I opened my mail at 5pm tonight so I just noticed that the time of the classes that are tonight’s classes are 6:45 and 7:15pm!!      I thought about it and called the dance studio and asked if I could bring the triplets down and have Ms. Jennifer, the dance instructor and owner, evaluate the triplets to see if they were ready for the 2-3 yo class.   I also wanted her to let me know if she thought Savvy could do the 4-5 yo class.

After I made the call, they told me to bring the girls down tonight if I wanted.   I am looking at the clock and it is now 5:50pm.  I have about 40 minutes for me to jump in the shower because I feel gross (it has been so hot and oppressive here) and also to get all 4 girls dressed up in the ballet gear and hair done.

I am running around with a vengeance and we managed to get to the dance studio at 6:50, just 5 minutes late.  Not too bad.    I had no ballet shoes or tap shoes for the girls and the studio said they have extras to lend people.   That was so cool!!   They were able to provide all of the ballet shoes and tap shoes for the 4 girls.  Yipee!!   I quickly get the triplets ballet shoes on and I walk them into the dance room.    I stay in there for moral support and observance for 5-10 minutes and then I left the room to be with Savvy who was watching vigilantly outside viewing through the one-way mirror.

One thing that impressed me about dance class on Friday nights is the classes only have about 6 kids in them and with my girls it made it about 9 kids in the triplets class and in Savvy’s class it was only about 5 with her in the class.  The waiting room for the parents was pretty bare and it made for a very relaxing and less hurried atmosphere.   The girls’ classes were the last classes of the day which made it less rushed and enjoyable for me.

Ok so back to dance!!  After 15 minutes of ballet, all of the girls ran out and I switched the ballet shoes for tap shoes.     You should have seen me, I was like a conveyor belt putting one shoe after the other…6 feet in all!! LOL!!

 The triplets quickly scuttled back into the dance room and tapped their little heart out.I had tears in my eyes.  I was so proud of them!!

I got Savannah ready for her class and she did beautifully in her class.    She has been out of ballet for about 16 months now.    She remembered most of her moves from her past and got to learn some new moves using new techniques.   She looked so confident and relaxed and had so much fun.

While she was in class, the triplets were running around the waiting area like my little banshee monkeys.  I had to remind them to be quiet to not disturb Savannah’s class.

It was amazing to see my parade of 4 pink ballet princesses, fluttering about in their tutus and laughing and giggling like little angels.    My 4 girls won the hearts of their teacher, Ms. Jennifer and also all of the other parents.

So I negotiated a discount rate with the owner.  I think the dance will benefit all of the girls in the following manner:

Amanda:   This will improve her sense of balance, strengthen her core and help her posture.

Maryssa:  She is pigeon toed, her feet point inward.  The shoes and the exercises will help align her feet to be more forward and hopefully help her overcome her pigeon toe.

Miranda:   She does not take direction well and easily gets distracted.  This will help her learn and follow direction in a group setting as well as keep her focused.

Savannah:   She has bilateral coordination issues and muscle tone issues which were inherited from me (so sorry Savvy!).    In the past when she was in dance, it offered her good therapy to help her promote good coordination and muscle tone.  

The nice thing about all of this is all of the girls have no idea it is therapy, it is fun, fun, fun!!

I took Amanda to see the spinal doctor  @ Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.   Her posture leans to the right, which is the club radial hand side.    I wanted to make sure she doesn’t have any spinal issues due to the posture.  She also has a dimple at the tail bone of her spine between her but cheeks. 

She had X-Rays done and the Spinal Dr. said everything looks fine.    He said the dimple is totally normal and no concerns.    He said signs for concern would be if the dimple was not centered, which is an indication that the spine might not be straight or if the dimple was never closed and looked really alarming.  Amanda’s looks normal. 

There are  different things that can be associated with Club Radial hand such as kidney problems or even absence of a kidney, vertebrae problems in spine, heart problems, renal failure problems, bladder problems and more conditions too.    I haven’t had Amanda’s kidneys checked, but I really don’t think she has any kidney issues.  She has no problems going to the potty and potty trained herself when she was 2-1/2 years old.  She doesn’t even need to wear a pull up at night she holds it all night long.  Yay!!

 When Amanda had her 2 genetics test done after birth plus I had fetal testing (CVS) while pregnant, all indications showed there is no genetic or chromosomal issue.  I had 2 different visits with Amanda’s geneticist, once at birth and a follow up when Amanda was 1 year old.   Amanda has club radial hand only on the right hand.   The geneticist told me that if she had club radial hand on both sides, it would probably be related to a syndrome of some kind, which is usually genetic or chromosomal.    The geneticist’s final conclusion and diagnosis is that Amanda’s club radial hand is an anomaly – unexplained.

 So in a nutshell, I am thrilled that Amanda’s spine is doing well and that we don’t have to worry about that.  We do have to help her work on her posture, but the doctor said it won’t affect her spine – thank goodness!!   There is enough to worry about raiding her with her club radial hand condition.

Today was the triplets 3 year old birthday party at a really fun place called Scooter’s Jungle.  It is an indoor child’s fantasy place and has a 2-story bouncy slide, a 100 foot bouncy activity center and another bounce house.  There were tons of different activities for the kids to play and do.  

The party began at 2pm.  About 20 adults and 22 kids were there.     At 3:45 we all went into the party room.    Each child had their own lunch sack filled with munchie goodies.    Then we sang happy birthay, the girls blew out their candles and everyone ate cupcakes, cake and ice cream.  

The party ended at 4:45pm.   Each child received a special plush Scooter monkey with balloon as a party gift favor.   

There was a ton of presents for the triplets. 

When we got home, I gave the girls dinner.  Then our neighbor Sid came over and the girls opened all of thei presents.  They had so much fun.    Lots of cute and fun stuff.    Then we all had more cake and dessert.

Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet girls – Amanda, Miranda, and Maryssa.

Boy was this a busy day!!    Today the triplets had their 3 year check up with Dr. Gonzalez.    I am happy to report no shots were required this visit.

Maryssa is slightly “toe in” which is like pigeon-toed.   Dr. Gonzalez says they don’t do braces anymore for that.  She said it is usually corrected by therapy of surgery.   We have a referral for Maryssa to see an orthopedic.

Maryssa also has a large freckle spot above her right ear   The dr. says it is a little birth mark.   I asked if she thought it was cancerous and she said no. 

Miranda has learned to make her eyes go cross-eyed.   Now sometimes when she does it her right eye will stick in the cross-eyed position…. the little stinker!!    Miranda has a referral to see a Pediatric Opthamologist (Dr. Fierson) for this.

Amanda may have astigmatism.   Dr. Gonzalez wants her to see a Pediatric Opthamologist also (Dr. Fierson)  If she does have this, she inherited from me.    I hope not though…

The triplets are in overall good health and no one is considered over weight or underweight.

Here are their stats:

Amanda is 31-1/4 pounds and 38-1/4 inches tall.  She is tallest.

Miranda is 34-1/4 pounds and 38 inches tall.  She is heaviest.

Maryssa is 28-1/4 pounds and 36-1/4 inches tall.  She is smallest

After the dr appointments, I had my dental check up and cleaning.  I am thrilled to say no cavities – yipee!!

At 3:30pm we ventured out to Disneyland.  We just can’t get enough of the place I guess.   We went to California Adventure and watched the Electric Parade.  It was just beautiful and amazing as ever!!

Then I took them shopping and got them some fun Disney trinkets.

Good Night Mickey Mouse!!