Who knew? Maize and blue looks good on Tyler!!

It turns out Tyler was meant to be a wolverine more than his mother was.  Today was our first visit with the University of Michigan Craniofacial Plastic Surgery services.  It was confirmed again that Tyler's cleft lip and palate is standing alone as an isolated birth defect.  Everytime we hear this we are thankful.  We learned that cleft lip and palates that show up together usually are isolated events.  But any clefts that are only the lip or the palate tend to be associated with other anomilies or syndromes.  Tyler's are "typical clefts", despite how severe we think they are.  He will need a bone graft from his hip to his upper jaw when he is around eight years old.  A bridge we will cross when it gets closer!  Maybe some new fancy easier procedure will be developed by then!  We learned how to tape is premaxilla in order to push it back in line, and prepare it for lip closure in a few short months.  We are very excited to start this closure process both physically for Tyler and emotionally for all of us.  He was a trooper thru his appointment and then got rewarded with lunch at Red Robin and his first trip to Target.  Ok, so he slept thru most of it, but I am sure he throughly enjoyed his day.  I am guessing there will be many stops at Target or Toys R Us on our way home from U of M visits to make good on our bribing efforts.  Todays appointment however was short and sweet and by far the best U of M visit we have had.  No adult tears were shed, and Tyler's were simply shed because he had to be fussed with.  Things are looking up between the Etues and the wolverines.  Good thing, cause this relationship has only just begun....................................