Selective Hearing?

Eli used to be our best listener...I mean if we said it, he did it. He's a pleaser anyway and he's a really easy kid (for the most part). But lately, like in the last few months, he kind of developed what I thought was selective hearing. Like, I would call his name in the store and he wouldn't turn around or I would tell him to go brush his teeth and he wouldn't move. It was getting a little bit...frustrating.
I don't know if I blogged about this or not but poor Eli had a REALLY nasty ear infection (I'll spare you the details but...yikes!) a few months ago. That combined with having one of his ear tubes fall right out of his ear initiated a visit with his ENT today. I really thought it would be a no-big-deal appointment. Eli's ear has been fine since the infection and, although his hearing has seemed a little selective lately, he seemed to be hearing just fine. And he is, mostly, but after two and a half hours at the ENT we discovered that, due to the hole in his ear drum, he is experiencing mild hearing loss.
Guess maybe he really couldn't hear me some of the time...huh. The ENT says Eli isn't off the hook, though. It's just a mild hearing loss and he can hear my voice but just may not understand what I'm saying sometimes. And he thinks he'll probably make a full recovery and that the hole will heal by itself. So until then, he'll just need to clarify what he doesn't understand.
On another positive note, they were amazed at Eli's speech. They haven't seen him in about a year and couldn't believe his progress. WAY TO GO, Theresa!