Remember that awful feeling of pressure in your eardrums going up or coming down in a plane as a kid?
On our trip home the other day, Rio described it as being “like knives in my ears”. I suddenly had this intense sense memory of that exact feeling. Awful. Maybe my least favorite part of air travel. I mean, other than all the other bad stuff.
My mama taught me to chew gum to help my ears on planes. I have no idea if this works, but I dutifully buy a few packs of gum for the older child before any flight.
The baby is getting to be a very big girl, but she is not big enough to chew gum yet. On the flight out to Arizona, she held a piece of gum in her hands like a talisman. It seemed to work.
On the flight home, I bought her a little purple tin of blueberry candy with a picture of an airplane on it. She ate the entire box before the plane rolled out of the gate.
We got a little ways up in the air and she started pulling on her ears and saying, “My ears hurt, Mama.” In a sad, confused voice.
I explained that she needed to yawn or chew or suck to pop the pressure in her eardrums. She looked at me like I was speaking Chinese and said, “Mama, my ears hurts.”
I started looking for something to chew on and found a cheese stick in my bag.
“Here, this will help,” I said as I handed it to her.
A few minutes later I looked over and saw Serena, extremely content and extremely focused, tearing off little chunks of her cheese stick and carefully forming them into little balls. She did not appear to be chewing.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She smiled at me and stuck the ball she’d been shaping in her ear.
“This will help,” she said calmly.
“Oh! Is that cheese in your ear? You’re supposed to eat the cheese, sweetie.”
“No! My ear hurt. My mouth no hurt. THIS WILL HELP.”
OK, kid. Maybe a Good Mother would have tried harder to get the cheese out of her ears. I whipped out my camera and preserved it for posterity.
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