Two-year-old Sydney (above) is a little girl that I’ve known since her mother Tanyia sent me an email back when Emily was wearing her NAM (so over two years now). Sydney and Emily are just six weeks apart in age (Emily’s older), and went through their initial NAM treatment and subsequent lip, then palate surgeries around the same time.

Unfortunately Sydney developed a couple of fistulas (openings in her repaired palate) which she’s going to have surgery for tomorrow. She will also be getting a nose revision. In spite of the fact that we live about 5 hours away, Tanyia and I have become good friends. I really wish I was closer so I could be there with her and Sydney tomorrow.

Please send your prayers and positive thoughts out to Sydney and her family to ensure that she gets through tomorrow’s surgery with no complications and that she’s home and happy as soon as possible. Tanyia, I’m sending you hugs from New York.

Emily and I mug for the camera.

Ana, Emily and I mug for the camera.

ps. I love my new camera…

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted, so here’s the quick follow-up from the Forward Face Walk. First of all, THANK YOU, to everyone who sponsored the walk. Thanks to your generosity, we raised nearly $1200 for Forward Face. I love the power of the Internet!

This is Emily on the morning of the walk. I woke her up at 6:30 a.m. and luckily she was in a good mood. We made it to the city on time (about 9:45 a.m.) and got our t-shirts and were able to walk for a bit over a mile.

Here’s the Forward Face banner (I cropped out the kids holding the banner since I didn’t get their permission to post their photos on the blog)

And we’re off! We pretty much stayed behind everyone else for about a mile, then Emily had an unfortunate potty-training related incident and we had to go back to the car to clean her up.

We recovered quickly from the aforementioned incident and went to F.A.O. Schwartz where Ana found the world’s coolest (and most expensive) stuffed unicorn. Emily fell in love with a dinosaur which she is now afraid of.

Emily’s fast asleep on the way home from…actually this isn’t the same day as the walk, but it seemed a fitting way to end this post.

Thanks again, everyone!!