That Big Head

Boys will be boys. So the saying goes.

And what is it that boys actually do? Let's see if I can remember as much as I think I can.

Back in the Philippines, we had an electric fan. A small desk fan with plastic blades and rather standard sized grills. Jakjak was just a year and a half old (I'm guessing here). While the fan was dwindling down after being turned off, he stuck his finger in. It rattled a bit and we only saw his arm retracting back to where it had been previously. "Ouch", he said.

There was this time that we were sitting patiently at Food Republic in Suntec while looking around waiting for a seat. Jakjak was just a little more than 3 years old, and he was sat beside a candelabra lit with a standard incandescent bulb. Curious, he touched the bulb and all we heard after that was a swoosh. His hand flew out of the candelabra faster than how it went in, and then a small squeal, "ouch", he said.

When he was 5 years old, he had a Valkyrie. That's a Robotech toy, a jet that can transform into a walker and then a robot. It was one of those Japanese culture unique super deformed toys. This one, however, had tires that could be removed (but shouldn't). One day, there was supposed to be 2 tires, but there was only 1. When we asked him where it was, he said he put it in his nose. We did not want to believe that he would do that to himself (we taught him better - or so we thought). Since mum did not want to take chances, she brought him to the doctor. But the local doctor was not fit to remove the tire from his tiny nostril, so he had to be sent to a specialist children's hospital. True enough, they plucked the tire out of his nose (after knocking him out with some sleeping gas).

Recently, he had been in and out and down and under the shelves at a shop in the mall. He always does this, to hide inside the clothes hanging on the racks so we paid him no mind. He soon stuck his head between two rails holding the shelf up. "Mum, I'm stuck". When we found him, his head was under the shelf with his body dangling out from the opposite side. "Mum, I'm stuck. Really!". And as we tried plucking him out, we found out that his big head was indeed stuck between the rails. While trying to get him out, we caught the attention of a couple who were probably thinking "what in the world are those three blokes doing?". A few nudges and pulls later, we decided to do it the other way around and push him in further. Luckily, his body was small enough to fit further in and he managed to get on the shelf and slide out from the side of it.

Oh yes, the things that little boys do.

CAUTION: Child Falling | 2012

Well, it was bound to happen (again). Jakjak is just too much of a busy body to just keep himself in one place. And being the runabout that he is, coupled with his trademark carelessness, he was an accident waiting to happen. And he did.


On a fateful Saturday evening, after a long but happy day, he woke up from a nap. And seeing that we were at his favorite spot, decided that we should have a foot race. Three, two, one, go. It was a bit dark, but it was a place we were familiar with so we weren't really worried about ghosts. And then it happened. Wham, bam, wah! Jakjak trips, falls, grinds and bangs his face on a curb. As a dad, you really have to stay calm during moments like these (even while your thoughts are racing in your head). You know it hurts, and you can see blood, and you also know that he's scared. So what now, dad?


Well, for starters, the situation had to be checked. It was dark, but aside from the curb, there were no other things that may have hurt him. Physically, there was an obvious gaping wound around his nose, but I did check for other likely places where a boo-boo may have gotten into like his knees, hands and limbs. Thankfully, aside from the nose area, he only managed a few scrapes on his knee, his elbow and his hand. With a few words of assurance, I managed to calm Jakjak down. He never stopped crying until we got home (which was still a good 5 minutes away) and his bleeding only subsided a little bit. Once home, I got him in the shower for a good scrubbing, and once clean, we finally got to see how bad the boo-boo had been. 

After a few more minutes of calming him some more, we grabbed a cab and headed to the hospital to get him checked. If it was just the knees and limbs, we wouldn't be too worried, but we don't know if there was anything we weren't able to see on his face (or his entire head). Thankfully, the hospital treated it as an emergency and we were ushered in quite fast ahead of some of the other patients. A diagnosis and an x-ray later (we spent a little more than an hour in the hospital, mind you), we were sent home with a recommendation to see an ENT specialist should we feel the need to have one look at Jakjak again. It's been a nerve-wracking night, and I guess all parents go through these things, with some more than others. It is important to note that one has to be in a good state of mind to react to any given situation. Better, if one can prevent it.

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