No, this is not about the recent movie starring Tom Hanks. ^^|

Like most parents, sometimes we would describe our children as both angels and devils — Angels when they are so lovingly adorable and laughing so innocently; and Devils when they get oh-so-cranky and whiny over the tiniest things.

So in this post, I’ll like to share on the ‘angelic’ and ‘devilish’ sides of our dear son Darius:

LITTLE SWEET ANGEL

Darius has developed very strong liking for three things in this following order:

1. Standing/Walking
2. People
3. Books/Paper with prints

Based on his preferrences listed above, Darius is somewhat different from the babies I’ve encountered. He doesn’t really enjoy playing with toys, unless he’s in a good mood. In fact, giving him a paper with prints or reading him a book will keep him more interested and focused.

He also simply loves to stand and walk, and dislikes crawling/creeping activities (though he has started to show improvements from his dislikes). The moment we propped him up in a standing position, his feet will start to stride forward while putting on the happiest look on his face. ^^

Darius also enjoys the company of people, be it his parents or other people he may or may not have met before. Most of the time, he would happily smile back to anyone who smiled at him. He also prefers to play with us than to play with his lifeless toys. It’s not a bad thing, but the downside is that we have to constantly keep him company to make him feel entertained and happy.

The clip below shows him happily running towards his long-time friend Bear Bear (see Darius’ New Friend) while cruising by our sofa. Nowadays, after we put him on one side of the sofa, he would quickly rush towards the coffee table area and start tapping on the glass surface with glee (we still have no idea why he loves that place so much). One of the few ways to ‘lure’ him back to his starting point would be to use Bear Bear, though it might not work always:

Darius also enjoys playing the tickling game with us, though he will always be on the receiving end of all the tickling (poor boy! ). He would laugh when we tickled him, especially at his abdomen area. He would also try to use his hands to cover his abdomen to prevent us from tickling him further, though his efforts are futile in front of us. ^^

THE LITTLE DEVIL

Darius’ conduct has been pretty good all these while, and he will only whine/cry when he’s hungry, sleepy or wanting to pee/poo. Unfortunately, his whiny behaviour has started to surface and increase in frequency lately.

At times when we walked away from him while he was seated and playing with his toys, he would start crying, afraid that we would leave him for good. This is probably his separation anxiety at work. One way we could minimise this behaviour was by waving him goodbye first before we turned away from him, though this does not work always too.

We have read that playing peek-a-boo with him will help him grasp the idea of ‘temporary separation’, so that he will not get upset so easily when he sees us leaving. Besides this above reason, peek-a-boo has also been a very enjoying activity for us with him, as he will chuckle, get really excited and then shy away giggling. ^^

He has also developed another undesirable behaviour — pushing away things he rejects. For example, he will push his milk container (aka the MagMag sippy cup that we are using) away from him when he doesn’t feel like drinking. Sometimes, he would push it away even before he had his first sip, and we had to coax/sing to him before he would obediently proceed to drink his milk.

Darius would also become very whiny after we put him seated or lying down after his cruising/walking activities, even if he had been walking for quite a while and feeling tired already. Since his love for standing/walking is VERY strong, putting him in any position after that would result in this:

It’s normal for everyone of us to exhibit our different emotions, so we can understand when Darius reacts differently to the things around him. It can be especially frustrating for babies who wish to convey their intentions to us adults but are hindered by their inability to voice them out properly.

Overall, we are very glad that he’s exhibiting more ‘angelic’ behaviour than ‘devilish’ ones (albeit things might not be the same when it comes to his ‘Terrible Two’ stage o_0|). Meanwhile, we will continue to emphasise on our many happy and memorable moments together instead of dwelling over those unpleasant ones.

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