During our flights back from North Carolina two weeks ago, Will had a little trouble equalizing his ears during descent. It was nothing major, very predictable, and he responded well to the standard treatment: holding one’s nose and blowing hard.<\/p>\n
Since then, he’s mentioned odd things with his ears. Specifically, that he “can’t hear his voice.” He doesn’t mention it everyday, but has mentioned it enough that we have gone through the processes of being concerned (first 2-3 times) to wondering if it is a new technique from throwing us off schedule at critical points, like at bedtime (occurs after mentioning 10+ times). Because he has not expressed any signs of pain, discomfort, or distress, we have not worried about it.<\/p>\n
About a week ago, Will put small foam pieces (parts of foam art sets) in his ears. We noticed quickly and I used a small tweezer to get them out. They weren’t far in, but I didn’t want to use a finger and risk pushing them in further. As far as we could tell, nothing else was in there. Because he didn’t complain about any ear pain, we haven’t worried further. (Besides the general worry that Will is going to start putting wide ranges of foreign objects in various orafices, as children are sometimes known to do<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Then, last night, Will told us that his ear “snapped.” Or maybe that it “cracked” or “popped” — I can’t quite remember. Whatever he said, it caught my attention and the attention of one of the girls next door and we had a little conversation about it, finally deciding that it was related to his ear clearing as a result of our recent flying, his trip to the pool yesterday morning, or both. He was fine the rest of the night and this morning.<\/p>\n