You can't go back......

My husband and I  watched some family video footage tonight of both the birth day of Chance's younger sister and the first few weeks of her life.

Chance shows his affection for his baby sister.

It was cute with all of the emotion of those tender moments with our new baby flooding back along with the darling interactions of our boys with their younger sister.

There was the footage of us leaving the hospital where Chance kept running way up ahead.  We called him back, but of course he did not hear us.  He found a couple at the end of the hospital hallway who were gathering up their supplies to take their baby home. Chance sat on his little haunces entranced watching them.

He had no idea what was being said by them or by us who were calling him to come back.

Chance after helping to bath his baby sister.

Some of the video made both my husband and I cringe though.

 Like the scene where we are all relaxed in the living room watching the miracle that is a new baby flex her fingers, open and close her eyes and make squeaking noises.

Chance's brother was walking up and  kissing his new baby sister.

Not Chance.  We would ask him if he wanted to, but he just kept in the background.

I have a segment of footage of Chance when we put the video camera on him as that is what we thought he wanted.  He kept peeking around to the front of the camera.  We thought he just wanted to see himself and there was probably some of that.
But when we focused the camera on him, there was also a look on his face of deep contemplation, like he was trying to figure things out.

I put my head down on my husband's chest at this point and kind of groaned as my husband sighed.

Chance looks like he is thinking and figuring things out.

There was our  sweet darling boy who was not hearing anything and here was this new baby and all of these things going on around him that he just did not understand.

Then there was the point where we kept telling Chance to "stop pulling on that."(we think he kept pulling on the lens cap for the camera.  That is our best guess from what we can see in the video)  We repeated that phrase several times and our poor deaf boy just kept going along probably wondering why his parents had a look of disapproval on their faces.

It is a little heartbreaking to look back now and watch Chance knowing that all the while during those times in his life that he was deaf and no one knew.

I wonder if he felt alone.
Did he long to hear again?
Did he wonder in confusion why he could not hear anything anymore?
Was he scared?
Oh how I wish I could comfort that small deaf boy that he was and snuggle him and let him know that it was alright.  That we would help him and that he was not alone.