This Mama Loves this Baby

Henry can’t hear.  Well, he can, but you have to nearly yell in order for him to hear you.  When I first found out that he had a hearing loss, I felt a terrible sense of sadness.  Sadness that he couldn’t hear the rain, or the birds, or the wind in the trees.  He probably didn’t know my voice.  He didn’t hear me when I sang to him.  It broke my heart that he was surviving and coping in a hearing world, but couldn’t hear what we all could.  At night, I would snuggle in his bed with him until he fell asleep.  I watched him drift off, not knowing whether or not to sing, not knowing how to communicate with my beautiful little boy.  The tears rolled freely down my cheeks on more than one occasion.  Then one night, I looked at him and he at me, and I put my finger to my nose and said “This Mama…” and then I touched his nose and said “Loves this baby.”  He grinned widely, and signed “more” to me, so I repeated it again, and again, and again.  And this became our bedtime ritual.  And this ritual reminds me of how wonderfully lucky I am to be the mama of this baby.