The Jones Girls

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.

This morning I was busy getting the girls all dressed up to look pretty for Savannah’s preschool party to celebrate her graduation from preschool.  I was rushing around-making deviled eggs, baking a chocolate cake and making Rice Krispy Treats all this morning.   I didn’t have much time to think – I was too busy just DOING.  I didn’t have any time to realize that today was going to turn out to be a very emotional day for me.

So we all piled into the car and drove to Savannah’s preschool.  It was a huge extravaganza.   Her teacher, Mrs. Van Vliet, told me this was the biggest party she had ever had in the history of her teaching her class.    In the past few months she has had 25 students, 12 in her morning and 10 in her afternoon.  Savannah was in her afternoon.   Mrs. Van Vliet invited the parents and siblings of all of her students.    I would say the attendance was about 50-75 people.   It was so much fun!!

My girls played with all of the other kids.   They ran around, climbed on the jungle gym and laughed loudly as they went down the curly shaped slide.  

One little boy, named Ian, had a crush on Amanda,  He was holding Amanda’s hand and taking her everywhere he was going.  It was so cute.   He said that Amanda was his girlfriend.  I video taped him talking to me saying that Amanda was his girlfriend.  For kicks I told him to speak in the camera and to tell Amanda’s Daddy that he was Amanda’s girlfriend.  Cliff is going to laugh (I hope) at that!!    Then a few minutes later I noticed Ian was holding Miranda’s hand and he said Miranda was his girlfriend.    Then a little while later he took Maryssa’s hand and took her everywhere he went and called Maryssa his girlfriend.  He was definitely smitten with the triplets!!   Apparently, Ian is the youngest of five kids and he has 4 older sisters.  No wonder!!  LOL!!

I took lots of pictures.     I am proud to say that Amanda and Miranda used the preschool toilet and they didn’t have any pee accidents!!   They are fully potty trained…woo hoo!!  Savannah that it was so cool that her sisters were using HER preschool toilet.  She was a proud big sister and showed them where the little stool was to help them up the toilet.  So cute.  My 4 girls!!

Cliff showed up at the end of the party.   He took a really nice picture of Mrs Van Vliet and me.  Mrs. Van Vliet (whom I am friends with and call her by her first name, Ronita) started tearing up and then started crying on each other’s shoulder.    Savannah has been with Ronita for over 1/3 of Savannah’s life and has been a huge part of mine too.     I had a lump in my throat and an ache in my belly.   I was so sad to be leaving Savannah’s preschool.    It would be my last time ever driving my daughter from that classroom.    We had said our good byes.   

All day I have been feeling a bit lost, depressed and weepy.   I know that I will feel better in a few days and begin looking forward to embarking on Savannah’s huge next big step – planning and getting her ready for Kindergarten in the Fall.

Savannah, my dear love, my first born, my true miracle.  I love you so much and Mommy and Daddy are ever so proud of your accomplishments these past 2 years.   You have done a fantastic and amazing job learning, growing and turning from our toddler into our girl.

Love, Love, Love you!!!! xxoxoxoxoxoxo

My babysitter and now dear family friend, Christine, and her friend, Nicole went with us to a carnival yesterday.  We went to the 23rd annual Summerfest in Brea.  It is a gigantic carnival.  They host top notch free entertainment.    Terry Fador  performed at the carnival last night.  Hhe won Grand Prize Winner as the most talented for America’s Got Talent on NBC.  He is a ventriloquist, singer, comedian and celebrity impressionist.  A true genius and an overnight sensation who now has his own Las Vegas show at the Mirage.   This man is a brilliant entertainer and he brought the house down last night.

The girls got hungry for dinner, it was 7:30pm,so I grabbed some hotdogs and we had dinner while watching the show.  It was so much fun!!  I can’t believe it was free!!

By the end of the show, the girls were ready to venture over to the vibrant twinkling lights where all of the fun games and rides were.    There were so many fun little toddler rides for the girls to ride on.  Each ride was $12 for all of the girls to go on.   I let them go on 2 rides.   I received a discount from the administration of the carnival.  They saw my 4 girls and just knew it was going to cost me a fortune and donated $36 worth of tickets so the girls could go on 3 rides.   Then a man overheard me telling the girls we ran out of tickets and he gave me 24 tickets so the girls could go on more rides!!   It was just amazing!!  God was shining down on us and showering us with so many blessings!!

We stayed till the carnival closed which was till about 10pm.   The people that run the rides let our girls go on the rides for free.    Again, I was amazed by such generosity.    

The man who gave us the free tickets is a DJ for a local radio station.  I met his wife and we hit it off.   We agreed to exchange email addresses and plan a Disneyland play date.  I emailed them today to see when they would like to go and to thank them for the tickets.

Last night just felt my heart with the Holy Spirit.  I felt God’s Love all around me.     Even in the tough times we are having right now, God gives me special gifts like what I received from such generous people yesterday!!

I took Amanda and Maryssa to the Public Preschool to be evaluated on Thursday May 28th.  

Since Amanda is being followed by the school district as a possible special needs due to her disability with her right arm, they want to do a global evaluation, academically and physically.   So Thursday we had it done.   She was tested at a 3-1/2 to 4 year old level!!  The preschool teachers and the school psychologist said they have never used the some of the pages of the evaluations for a 2 year old before and were amazed.  Way to go Amanda!!  So she will not need speech therapy or Special Ed Kindergarten.

Maryssa got evaluated because she currently receives speech therapy once a week and the school district wanted to see if Maryssa would benefit from the Public Preschool that would offer her speech therapy.  She tested much lower than Amanda in terms of receptive language which is processing and understanding language.   She tested a little bit better in her expressive language than receptive language.  Expressive language is how she communicates and talks.     I am hoping she will receive speech therapy at the preschool because I think she will benefit greatly from it over a traditional preschool because of the smaller classroom size vs. a larger classroom size in a traditional preschool.   Maryssa is such an adorable and darling sweetheart.  She is just my precious!!

We have a follow up appointment on the results of their evaluations on June 10th.

Today I took all 4 girls shopping at Walmart.    I had Amanda sitting in the seat of the basket and Maryssa was sitting inside the basket.   Miranda and Savannah walked beside me while we shopped.

Savannah wanted to get in the basket with Maryssa.  Miranda loved her freedom and felt like a grown up walking beside her mommy!  

Then it all changed….we approached the dozen or so aquariums with many different kinds of fish.  All of the girls immediately demanded to get out of the basket.   I let them all out and they glued their faces to the glass aquariums.  They were mesmerized by the swaying of the swimming fish.   They all agreed that their favorite fish were the algae eaters…they loved their whiskers and said they looked like cats that were fish!!   So cute!!

Then I let them all hold hands and we shopped through the store.  It was their first time not sitting in the basket and walking with me while I shopped.    I was so proud of them.

They explored each isle and picked up a product, studied it and then they put it back on the shelf mindfully after  my request to do so.  They really were good little shoppers.    

Once we were in line at the check out that was when things got a little crazy.  You know how the stores put all of the candy and toys by the check out stand – they know parents will buy the stuff to keep their kids quiet and from going ballistic in the store .   Well, I was firm and polite all at the same time when I told the girls that they couldn’t have any candy, gum or toys.     They did really give a big fuss at all about it.  Whew!!

I can only imagine what shopping is going to be like when they are teenagers…

Lately the girls have been fascinated with bugs.   They are in the backyard exploring under rocks and bricks looking for all kinds of different bugs to collect in the special bug houses.

This is silk worm season so Savannah’s preschool has been focusing teaching them about caterpillars turning into cocoons and then into butterflies.  They are also learning about polliwogs and how they grow up to be frogs.  

Last week the girls were so proud.  They had collected over 50 rollie pollies and brought the container in the house to show them to me.    They forgot to take the container back outside and they left the container – with the lid off – and the rollie pollies got out and are living amongst us in the house.   Eeeeek!!!

We are teaching them not to touch spiders and Daddy Cliff has taught them that worms are fine to play with but don’t play with a worm that has legs, they are dangerous!!