I HEART FACES! ~ WONDER

Week 6

Yes I know I have posted this pic (in color) and this same exact story before for a Wordful Wednesday post but I couldn't pass up the chance to use it for the I heart faces kids contest when I saw the theme was wonder! I edited the pic a bit but here is the underlying story of why I love this picture!

To most this is yet another picture of a beautiful little boy staring off into the world but to me it means SO much more. For the initial version of my son's hearing difficulties go here and I will try to keep this short and to the point. I had told everyone for a long time I didn't think Isaiah could hear me. I knew he wasn't completely deaf but I had to clap my hands of yell to get his attention far too often if he wasn't looking at me. Everyone had an excuse like he is stubborn (yep!), he is the second child and they don't talk as early (true!) or he is a master of selective listening (he's a pro now!). Like every Mother who doesn't want anything to be wrong with her baby, I chose to accept these excuses but my intuition told me otherwise. After a long struggle, I got him into an ENT who confirmed my fears. Isaiah had a BUNCH of fluid on his ears, needed tubes and he could not hear. They feared he would have permanent hearing loss because of the extent of his damage. The surgery went off without a hitch and I cried the first time I saw him wandering around the house trying to figure out each and every tiny noise he heard. You don't realize all the things you "hear" and block out until your baby boy is perched with his ear against the running dishwasher wondering what in the world is going on in there and you never even "heard" it running. Everything was new to him. Isaiah's personality and hearing was night and day just days after surgery. Six months post-op, many visits, two failed hearing tests later, he FINALLY passed his first hearing test and tears just rolled down my cheeks as he turned for every sound.

Isaiah always loved parades and was never scared of the loud noises but that was because everything was muffled in his world. The photo above is of him watching a parade just two weeks after surgery. He was in awe as if he had never seen a parade but it was because he had never truly heard a parade until this photo was taken. Every time I see this picture I think of all my little boy went through and how thankful I am that he can hear everything unless he is using his newly acquired selective listening skills, of course! At the time I was taking the picture, I was wondering if he could hear and my heart skipped a beat when the firetrucks came and I took another photo with him laying back with his hands over his ears ~ he can hear!

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