Thai Tails: Sidewalk Perils and Head Lice

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Sidewalk Perils and Head Lice

Sometimes the fact that Thailand is a developing country comes crashing back to you.

In this case, Thavorn, Jaidan and I were walking the 5 km to Big C to purchase some groceries. As usual, Jaidan was in his kangaroo pouch and now that he is 8 months and about 14 kilos, I can't really see my feet. I have also walked this route at least 30 times so I don't really pay attention.

I was teasing Thavorn about something ... can't remember what ... turning to my right as I did so and stepped into a sidewalk pothole ... of which there are many. Down I went with the thought that I was doing a face plant with Jaidan underneath my 95 kilos hitting the curb first. All those years of football kicked in and a cradled Jaidan like a football with my left arm and rolled to my right in mid air to take the curb landing with my shoulder and right triceps. Jaidan emerged unscathed except for a few scratches on his right knee and a couple of bruised toes. He sure was making a racket though as we lay on the side of the road with Thavorn trying pull my 95 kilos and Jaidan's 14 kilos up with my left arm which was now free. Thankfully some passerby's were willing to help.

No big deal, I ended up with lots of scrapes and bruises to the right side of my body but they will be gone in 3 or 4 days. Better yet, Jaidan quickly calmed down and we proceeded to Big C as we needed the groceries to feed Jabba and the kids. However, I will go back to watching the sidewalk and encourage visitors to Thailand to do the same.

Jaidan is loving his bath time in the bath tub and I will share a few pics.

Head lice are everywhere in Thai schools. I even had Thavorn buy head lice shampoo and treatment but it is a losing battle. You can run but you can't hide. Children do not get sent home from school as there would be no girls in the school. The boys are not a problem as they usually have a buzz cut. So monkey see ... monkey do ... daily pruning by mom is a necessity. I can't help but think Jabba has lice as well as they all sleep together. They are all currently sleeping on the couch so I am not keen to use it but the lice seem to prefer the coarser Thai hair as it is a better perch :-) I suspect Jabba does not look for lice and just accepts the condition as commonplace ... which it is.

So far Jaidan is lice free and he is easy to check.