Julie Wash wiped away tears of emotion as 8-year-old daughter Kaylee Wash turned around and showed off her new hairdo.
"My hair is so short," said Kaylee, excited nonetheless at the new shoulder-length, layered style.
Kaylee also got her nails done, a facial and a glamour photo at Nesbit salon in Richmond on Monday during an evening of pampering for her and nine other girls who in other settings might stand out because they look a little different.
The girls were born with facial differences, including cleft palate, a disorder many people associate with children living in underdeveloped countries but which is in fact one of the most common birth defects in the United States.
Many of the girls have endured multiple surgeries and some still have more to go. All are patients of the Craniofacial Clinic at the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, which coordinated the evening out.
"She's so strong on the inside," Julie Wash, of Louisa, said of Kaylee.
"She didn't have anything in the roof of her mouth, so they had to re-do the roof of her mouth and her lip. They've done her nose two times. And then multiple (ear) tubes.
"I've told her since she was born that God made her different and everyone else is the same. That's the way we've gone about it. She always says 'God made her special.' "
Jennifer L. Rhodes, a pediatric plastic surgeon and medical director of the VCU Center for Craniofacial Care, said cleft palate or cleft lip occurs in about one in every 700 births in Virginia, for about 200 cases a year.
Rhodes said she was getting her hair done at Nesbit several years ago when she and stylist Stephanie Valentino came up with the idea of Girls Night Out.
Salon owners Greg and Carol Nestor supported the idea. The salon staff donated their time. A small grant from the Children's Miracle Network and the Children's Hospital Foundation helped with other expenses.
"We just want to do two things. Let them know we see them as people and not just diagnoses, conditions and surgeries, and do whatever we can to boost their self-confidence and their self-esteem, especially in those awkward kind of years," Rhodes said.
Rhodes said they do Girls Night Out twice a year, and also do a Boys Night Out, usually involving an outing to a sporting event, twice a year.
In addition to cleft palate, Rhodes said facial differences could be scars from traumatic injuries or burns or other unique disorders, such as one in which one side of the face is larger than the other.
"There are a lot of kids here in Virginia and in the Greater Richmond area that are affected by these conditions and a lot of kids who really need a lot of help and … families that really just need to be educated about how to get the best care for their kids," Rhodes said.
Holly Marshall, 8, could barely contain herself Monday, bouncing around to show off her manicured nails and hair, which has been transformed from straight to curls.
"She's been so excited about this," said Holly's grandmother, Jean Marshall.
Alycia Trice, 29, a college graduate who recently married, had multiple surgeries for a cleft lip and palate as a young girl. "Growing up, people on the school bus would be mean to me. People who didn't know me would look at me and do things in a mean way," Trice said.
She was at the Girls Night Out event as a role model, saying she wanted to let the girls know "it's OK."
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