First of all, great post Lil! I absolutely loved the moment when he announced his black belt. I'm very glad you and your daughter were able to get out of that situation safely. I was born with a cleft palette, and I was supposed to be born with a cleft lip. When I was born there was a hairline scar running from my nose to my lip. It turns out that my cleft lip was healed in utero, this is extremely rare. I can only imagine that had I been born with a cleft lip my life would've been very different. Also had the surgeons not been able to repair my cleft palate, my life would've been vastly different -imagine having no barrier between your mouth and nasal passage. It turns out that I was very lucky to have been born at the University of Michigan and had some very capable surgeons repair my palate. It took a series of 3 major surgeries between the age of 2-3.5, grafting skin from the back of my throat to the roof of my mouth. Some of my earliest memories are of being in the hospital. So, I'm not sure that it qualifies as a miracle to have been born with only a hairline scar instead of a major gap on my face… But I feel pretty damned fortunate, if nothing else for the doctors that had the faculty to repair me. But the real miracle came when this little girl was born, and the first thing I did was look at the roof of her mouth and thankfully… It was intact :-)
She does, however, have a major problem with facial hair.
My first boyfriend had a cleft lip and had to have many, many surgeries due to some complications beyond the initial ones. I loved him with a fierce love, he was one of the great loves of my life. The deformity made him who he is today - a super compassionate, loving, kind, smart gentleman. Everyone should be so lucky to be able to face the world with one layer stolen, as then you can be more easily You. I loved your story here, and your girl is ADORABLE! All kids love mustaches, what's that about, anyway?
Thank you, I think she is adorable too. I didn't mean to suggest that my life wouldn't be rich or fulfilled because of a cleft lip, it just would have certainly been different and I would have likely had more surgeries etc. Why do all kids love mustaches? Good question, I think they look like a caterpillar on the lip... maybe that's why?
Oh gosh, I didn't mean at all that you thought there would be emotional differences in your marriage, what I wrote didn't come out right. I was just remembering my first true love and realizing that it is the scars we carry that make us the most whole. :) Here in New Mexico, wherever they have those little bubblegum machines in restaurants and in stores, the kind you put in a quarter or two and get a big gumball or perhaps some stickers, they have MUSTACHE MACHINES! I kid you not. They are everywhere! They are stocked by a Mexican company, and all of the mustaches have a name associated with a famous Latino villian/hero/star. You can maybe "win" the Pancho Villa! The Castro! The Escobar! 50 cents for a stick-on mustache. When my youngest son, now 15, was yet younger, he had quite the collection.
Mustache machines? I think New Mexico just bumped itself up a few notches higher on my list of states that I should visit. I love that your son had a collection of mustaches, how wonderful.
A beauty!! Does she do a Groucho imitation? yes, our babies remind us of the miracles - It's a miracle too that the surgeries were successful and helped you live your life. My daughter's best friend in high school was also born with a cleft palate and had to endure surgeries every summer for the first five years we knew her. It's been a struggle for her.