So the year was 2019. You remember 2019? I bet you do. We all want to forget 2020.
Anyway, the year was 2019 and my youngest was four. He’s always been fairly mature for his age – keeping up with the older bro and all – so sometimes there are things in life that I assume he already knows.
Like: we don’t put rocks in our ears.
IF YOU HAVE KIDS DON’T YOU EVER ASSUME ANYTHING. Especially when it comes to their prefrontal cortex development, AKA these skills:
- reasoning
- logic
- stopping impulses
This is why, when you’re four, and you’re playing in the schoolyard playground, it seems like a good idea for you and your cousin to see if you can get the pea gravel to fit in your ear.
The morning after “the incident” my son casually mentioned to me, “When we were playing outside yesterday, my cousin and I tried to see if we could fit a rock in my ear and it did.”
Me: “But you got it out, right?”
Him: “No.”
Me: “WAIT THE ROCK IS STILL IN YOUR EAR?”
Him: “Yep!”
So I pull out my phone, turn on the flashlight and inspect the inside of his ear canal. There is, indeed, a tiny rock in there.
So. We call his pediatrician and schedule an appointment.
Long story short, the pediatrician could not get the rock out of his ear. She referred us to an ENT.
The ENT used a fancy vacuum thing and still, could not get the rock out of his ear.
Now we have been referred to the hospital, where they need to put him under anesthesia to remove the tiny piece of pea gravel in his ear. Our appointment is the following day.
The entire procedure at the hospital takes less than 15 minutes, but we’re there about three hours because check-in, waiting for our procedure, and observation afterwards. He gets to keep the rock as a souvenir.
In the midst of all this, The Husband calls his sister and has this conversation:
Husband: “Hey, sis, you may want to check your daughter’s ears for rocks.”
Her: “What, WHY?”
Husband: “Apparently she and my son were having a challenge to put rocks in each other’s ears.”
Her, to her daughter, “Do you have a rock in your ear?”
Daughter: “Yes.”
My Husband: “According to my son, it was your daughter’s idea.”
Her: “Now, don’t you always go blaming my kid for shenanagins–“
Daughter, interrupting, “IT WAS MY IDEA.”
However, in a much happier turn of events, Connor’s girl cousin went to the pediatrician, who was able to easily extract the rock from her ear.
We all laughed about it until the bill came. Thank goodness for insurance.
Still, that was a pricey lesson to me, and probably (hopefully) the most expensive fragment of pea gravel I’ll ever encounter in my lifetime.
