I must have done something right to deserve a hug every morning and buttlerfly kisses at night.

We talk of butterfly kisses and we see a very pretty multicolors object sitting on a young girl's cheek with its wings outstreached as if to give kisses. Ah, the songwriter and singer's art by Bob Carlisle and Randy Thomas are very well crafted. Could we imagine this same scene with a large moth or perhaps in an earlier stage as a crawling caterpiller. It not quite the same and we would sherk in horror from the thought of it. We also imagine the ugly duckling that grows up into a beautiful swan.; given the opportunity the swan will shed in ungainly demeanor and become a graceful water borne creature.

But such things are what dreams and romantics are made of; the scenario does not always turn out like that. The beautiful baby doesn't always materialize; there are those with cleft lip or palate, Down Syndrome, spina bifida, heart defects, or hypospadias. According to the March of Dimes, about 150,000 babies are born with birth defects each year in the U.S. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says that 3% of the babies born in the U.S. have some kind of major birth defect. There are more than 4,000 different known mental or physical disabilities and birth defects ranging from minor to serious, and although many of them can be treated or cured, they are the leading cause of death in the first year of life.

It is very heart rendering to witness a baby with a cleft lip and palate trying to nurse from its mother. These children are very much beautiful creatures in their own right but may be leaning closer to the moth or caterpillar then we expected. They require and need our love just as much as that beautiful child.

K.