We will be eternally grateful to the amazingly gifted team at NYU’s Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery for the excellent treatment she received (and continues to receive). I wanted to take a moment to also thank the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction (NFFR.org) which made it possible for us to take Emily to NYU for presurgical molding using the NAM, and to get her subsequent lip and palate surgeries performed by Dr. Court Cutting. We could not have afforded it without this organization’s funding.

The NFFR’s mission is to support treatment to those suffering from craniofacial conditions, regardless of their financial means and helps provide care to over 1500 children each year. If you are looking for a good cause to donate to this year (or next), I urge you to give to the NFFR.org which continues to help families who desperately need the care and expertise provided at NYU’s Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery. Emily’s smile wouldn’t be what it is without them!

Emily is pensive as she contemplates her toy dinosaur.

She attempts to nourish the dinosaur, demonstrating an uncanny ability to nurture a rubber toy stuffed with sand.

Having been fed, the dinosaur is once again returned to his home. Emily contendedly eats her cereal around him.

I heard this wonderful song today by Trans Siberian Orchestra and I wanted to share the lyrics. This is for Emily and all the little ones who have to deal with so much pain and hardship when they should just be worrying about toys, and bottles and growing up.

Different Wings
by Trans Siberian Orchestra

Dream, child
as childhood wants to do

dream all this night will allow
dream, child
dream with an angel’s view
out there safe in your clouds

wait for me now
I will be there for you
no matter what
tomorrow may bring
this I will vow
I will be there
for this child with different wings.

dream, child
stars have been rumored to
see dreams within newborn eyes
and in their arms I believe they do
keep safe until you arise

wait for me now
I will be there for you
no matter what
tomorrow may bring
this I will vow
I will be there
for this child with different wings

Alas, the stress of the holidays has clearly gotten to Emily. I was trying to get a picture of her and Ana together (sitting sweetly beneath our Chanukmas tree and holding hands lovingly in their pajamas). Did that happen? No. This is the best I’ve got so far. Basically, I told Jim to hold a red blanket up behind Ana and Emily to get a nice background effect. Only the blanket is fleece and it caused a bit of static action on Emily’s hair. Jim found this funny, so he rubbed the blanket on her hair until it stood out like a one of those dandelion puff balls. Emily found the blanket over head hysterical and the two of them fed off each other until I finally arrived at the above picture. What does this have to do with clefts? Nothing. It’s just a snapshot of the comedy that is my life…

Emily is finally big enough to sit at the kids’ table with Ana and her cousins. Here’s a shot of her on Thanksgiving Day looking like a very big girl. I didn’t post this at Thanksgiving because my camera was at my sister-in-law’s house since yesterday (she’s only ten minutes away). Why couldn’t I find ten minutes to drive over there and get it? That’s an excellent seguey into a rant about the holidays…

First of all, we celebrate Chanukah and Christmas (my family celebrates Chanukah and Jim’s is Christmas). Only my family doesn’t really celebrate Chanukah in a traditional way – we sort of have an un-Christmas. We wrap everything in blue and/or Chanukah wrap (whatever we can find), we do not say Merry anything and we try to rediscover our inner Jew-ness, which has become very difficult lately what with all the lights blinding me every time I walk past my Chanukmas Tree. This year my family is getting together on the 17th to exhange our Chanukah gifts so we are all scurrying to get the gifts bought, wrapped and tucked safely away an entire week earlier than the rest of the world (Chanukah starts the day after Christmas this year) so that Jim and I can stay home on Christmas weekend and celebrate with his family. They do a traditional two-day Christmas Eve/Christmas Day holiday blitz complete with matching pajamas for the kids and Christmas outfits (whatever they are).

Emily and Ana are taking all this chaos in stride and, if you ask me, they are each rising to the occasion. Emily, for example, has learned how to climb onto the couch but has not quite mastered the art of climbing down yet. I somehow managed to levitate across the room and catch her before she bounced from the top of the couch, to the cushion, to the floor, but not without minor injury on my part. She is leaving our HOLIDAY tree alone, but sometimes she likes to remove ornaments and bring them to me just so she can watch me put them back on.

Ana is very excited. If a day goes by without her asking me if it’s Christmas today, then I’ll be sincerely worried. I had the bright idea of putting stickers on the calendar each day to mark that it’s one day closer to Christmas. It worked splendidly until she covered the entire month with stickers in an eager attempt to make time pass more quickly. So, Merry Chanukmas, folks! According to our calendar, it’s been Christmas for the past three days.