Tag Archives: isabella

We’re off to see the wizard, um, surgeon! At Dell Children’s Hospital!

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Isabella at the Cloisters Museum

Hello, cutie! Mom loves ya!

Our darling Isabella is growing up so fast. She’s nine now, and it’s hard to believe we adopted her just over six years ago. Time flies!

When we adopted her at age 3, her palate had not yet been repaired, though her lip had been repaired in China. (Those of you who are new to my blog may not know that our youngest daughter was born with a cleft lip and palate).

She had her palate repaired at age three and a half. And since then, she’s had two lip revisions (you can barely see the scar now!) and tomorrow she’s having one of the biggies. The docs at the cranio-facial clinic at Dell Children’s Medical center will be taking a bit of bone from her hip tomorrow (Wednesday) to graft into the one place the cleft still remains: her upper gumline. This will give her permanent teeth a place to anchor (and improve her speech even more).

It’s amazing how far she’s come. From not being able to articulate any words at all (it’s impossible without a palate) to being completely understandable (except for the odd word here and there).

She’s such a young lady now … not to mention a trooper! A shame she’s the only kid on the planet who doesn’t like milk shakes, because she’s on a liquid diet for the next two weeks. Ugh!

Here she is just a few months ago. (I stealth recorded in Bloomingdales while her big sister was trying on clothes! She’s a doll … and her speech is great!)

And here she is six years ago before the palate repair (this tape is long; we made it for the speech therapist)

Hugs to my darling Isabella! We love you and we’re so proud of you!

Butt that’s so inappropriate!

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As I mentioned on Friday, my little one just had surgery. Perhaps it was the codeine. Perhaps it was the kid. Frankly, I’m thinking the kid.

Another episode of Heard at Our House:

INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

The television is tuned to Real Housewives of Orange County. The PARENTS sit on the couch, watching the train wreck that is RHOC.

ISABELLA enters, wearing a nightgown.

ISABELLA

Can I watch?

PARENTS

(pausing the show)

Sorry, sweetie. It’s inappropriate.

Isabella makes a face. Stands between Parents and the television.

ISABELLA

THAT’S not inappropriate!

(she whips down her underwear, bends over, and moons the parents)

THIS is inappropriate!

Ah, good times. I won’t mention the “inappropriate dance” that came later.

Thanks so much to everyone who made yesterday’s Release Day for WHEN PASSION LIES so much fun!

And more release week goodness today! I’ll be guest blogging over at Paranormal Haven today! Come say hi!

If you missed the newsletter I recently sent out, you can read it here. Lots of cool stuff coming this summer!

So, how about you? Feel like sharing your kids’ embarrassing stories? Come on now, don’t be shy. Let’s not leave my poor kid’s, ah, rear, hanging out there all by its lonesome!

TODAY: Buy a book, help a kid!

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Julie Kenner and her daughter Isabella

Me and my sweet girl!

As many of you know, my daughter Isabella was born with a complete unilateral cleft lip and palate, meaning that there was a gap through her lip and jaw and her palate was open. (Bilateral would mean two gaps).

Her lip was repaired in China when she was about a year old (we recently did a revision to pretty up that scar, and she’ll have another revision this summer). China, however, didn’t repair her palate. That was repaired when she was 3 1/2 years old, after we adopted her. I blogged about the surgery here

Isagella after her cleft palate repair surgery

Many people don’t realize how important it is to have a corrected lip and palate. Babies can’t suck with a cleft. Speech is completely impossible.

And the kids often have decades of surgery ahead of them. (Isabella will be having a bone graft this summer, taking bone from her hip to fill the gap in her jaw; she’ll also be having a lip revision. In a few years, she’ll have surgery to actually move her jaw forward. That’s in addition to the three surgeries she’s already had. And she’s one of the lucky ones; some kids born with clefts have many, many more).

The support of charities that help kids around the world with cleft lips and palates is something near and dear to my heart. I personally support Love Without Boundaries (and Half the Sky, which helps with educating orphans in China). But there is another organization that sends out doctors to repair the cleft lips/palates of kids, and that organization is The Smile Train.

So I was very pleased to see that author Sophia Knightly is donate a proceed of today’s sales of select titles of her books. You can read all the details here. So buy a book and help a kid!