Okay, so I’ve been really bad about updating the site – now that it’s FEBRUARY! First of all, I want to let anyone who visits regularly know that we haven’t dropped off the face of the planet, I’ve just been busy getting some other blogs started (unrelated to clefts). I also have a terrible spam problem with this blog and so if you’ve posted comments and I haven’t responded or approved them, that’s why. I just deleted over 16,000 comments, most of them were junk. I’m sorry if I deleted yours! I’m going to come in at least once a week to check the comments from now on, but if you really need to reach me, please email me at jackie@jacquelinedooley.com!
Now for some updates on Emily.
First of all, she’s wonderful. She loves kindergarten and has many friends. She’s still happy and goofy and, as it turns out, she has a huge stubborn streak (her older sister has experienced it more than once lately).

She’s growing very tall lately too. I imagine many of my blogging buddies are seeing the same tremendous growth spurt and I PROMISE to visit all of your blogs over the next couple of weeks and leave comments. I really miss talking with other parents about our kids’ unique issues. Like, is anyone else fielding lots of “why was I born with a cleft?” types of questions from their child? Emily has been asking this a lot. I just don’t have a good answer for her.
We have a very exciting event coming up next week. Emily is going to be photographed by a professional photographer for a fundraising event for NYU! The event is being organized by the Smiley Faces Foundation
In all honesty, I don’t know much about the event except there will be many photographs of children with clefts being displayed at a big gala in the city in April. Emily turns six in April so I think that’s very appropriate! The Smiley Faces Foundation is a new foundation formed by Adam Bell and its mission is to raise money (and awareness) for NYU’s Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery. Of course, we would do anything we can do to help with this cause!
Okay, I’ll end with a few recent pictures of Emily and her big sister from the last month or so.

Okay, so not one of Em’s better pictures (her lips are red and chapped), but a great shot of how she looks now in terms of her repair. This is from just a week or so ago.

Emily and Ana out in the snow after our “big” snowstorm on Wednesday.

A picture from the same day. Why is her hair wet, you ask?

That’s right. Score one for Ana. How did Ana react, you ask?

Yep. (Emily was fine)

She even got her sister back!






























