Learned this one the painful way

Ethan doesn't wake up in the middle of the night often, but when he does I become a super grumpy mom. I try to be civil, so I enter his dark room and lift him out of his crib, lay him on the bed nearby and lie down next to him. My mood transforms as he reaches around my neck with his stubby arms and pulls my face to his. He places my cheek to his cheek and we lie there, breathing in each other's hair.

We were locked in this embrace a couple of mornings ago and when Ethan finally let go of my neck, I noticed that my cheek was wet. In the dark I traced around his face with my fingers and noticed that his ear was also damp. I imagined that tears had fallen into his ear as he was crying when he first woke up.

Ethan talked and sang but never fell back asleep, so after a couple of hours I finally decided to get up for the day. When I reached for my son I noticed his ear was still wet. I picked him up, turned on the light and felt my stomach twist.

Out of my son's ear and reaching across his cheek was one of those humongous worm boogers that hang out of kids noses while they are playing outside in the dead of winter. Only this was no snot, and when I gently pushed on the outside of his ear, more of the gooey stuff flowed out.

I immediately knew I had failed my child. Earlier that week, I had decided that at 20 months he had already reached the terrible twos and that would explain his extremely whiny behavior. I remember thinking he must just be really tired when he was grabbing at his ears. I had wondered why, during his recent baths, he had freaked out when we laid his head down in the water. And after who knows how many days of my ignorance and inaction, Ethan's eardrum - under the extreme pressure of infection - had finally ruptured.

I thought he would be deaf and angry with me for the rest of his life. But the doctor acted like it was no big deal. We just need to give Ethan some antibiotics for a couple of weeks and his ear will heal!

The bad news: there is still puss oozing out of his ear and getting all over everything. More good news: without the earache, my kid is pretty happy now so I think we still have a few months until the terrible twos.