You Stuck What in Your Ear?!

What is it with kids and sticking things where they just don’t belong? 

Stuck What in Your Ear?

Take my son for instance. Last night, I found my husband looking in Devin’s ear with a flashlight. “I think there is something in his ear,” he said to me as I walked upstairs to bed. “He said his ear is bothering him.”

“Hmmm. . . unless he put something in there,” I replied looking at Devin, who looked at me with the deer in the headlights look. You know the look when you’re child just did something he probably shouldn’t?

 ”I did.” he said quietly looking up at me.

“Oh no! What did you put in there?” as my husband and I took turns tugging at his ear and angling the flashlight up so we could take a good look. I could see something red and reflecting off of the light like a little jewel. It was a piece of lego, one of his favorite things to play with and apparently thought as we all were getting ready for bed that it was a good idea to literally shove it into his ear canal. 

“Crap.” I muttered tugging at his ear hoping it wasn’t too tightly fitted in there and would just fall out. No such luck.

My next thought was, emergency room in the middle of the night and a minimum of about a 5 hour wait because for some reason children’s emergencies always seem to happen at night and pack the Children’s Hospital emergency room. So I Googled “kids sticking something in ear” and apparently, although being a mother of three I was familiar with this scenario, it is very common for children to stick things in their ears, nose and mouth.

It was one of those little red angled lego pieces you attached onto cars for headlights and it was the perfect shape to fit into his tiny ear.

So after about an hour or so of tugging at his ear a few times, having him shake his head a few times, flushing it out with water and then finally dislodging it with tweezers we sat him down and said, “If you have a question about this stuff can’t you just ask? We can look at anatomy books, we can look on the computer and answer whatever curious questions you have. Just don’t stick things in your ear smaller than your elbow.” as we both gave him a hug.

Of course, my husband who thinks everything is comical was snickering as he walked away. “It’s not funny, ” I replied, “He could seriously damage something and if you don’t make him understand that he will stick something else in there. It’s not like it’s the first thing he has stuck in his ear, remember the cheerios?”

Man. And on the same day my daughter had the rich idea to show her Tinkerbell panties for show and tell. There’s never a dull moment.