After he started walking, Darius’ horizon suddenly expanded.

Every object, every person is so interesting to him that he’ll move towards the person just to touch, just to feel.

The bad thing is that he has no sense of danger and totally no stranger anxiety. He moves towards people while walking in the public and sometimes, that person will carry him up and he’ll stare at them and touch their mouth or face!

THAT is so not good, especially in these H1N1 times. I couldn’t be impolite since people adored him yet my mind was whirling and heart was racing. I have to be extra vigilant in not letting him go near anyone after several episodes.

He also loves interacting with other children and enjoy walking towards them with his unsteady steps. If any child comes near him, he’ll reach out and grab their shirt, touch their back or front.

Yesterday, he also became a ‘bully’ at the playground. While we were practising walking, a grandparent bought his little girl to the area and set her in front of Darius.

The boy reached out immediately and grabbed her fringe! I hurriedly tried to extract his strong grip on her hair but couldn’t pull his fingers out soon enough because I’m afraid the hair might get yanked off.  Alas, the grandparent was shocked and yanked his fingers off quite roughly. I could understand his feelings so I couldn’t blame him. He was so heartpain that his girl was being bullied.

That grandparent even thought Darius was a ‘gor gor’ and angrily asked how old Darius was. After he found out that Darius wasn’t even one year old yet, he lightened abit. His girl was 15 months already and still not walking. But he still needed to add in this sentence which is obviously for me to hear, “Little kids cannot fight!”  I was dumbstruck. This is fighting?! How could I explain that Darius was being ‘friendly’, and actually wanted to play with her? He got afraid of Darius after that since Darius still wanted to go towards the girl and quickly went off.

Then, in the evening when we went over to my in-laws’ place, Darius started pulling his cousin’s shirt too and wanting to touch his body while moving towards him. They ended up in a scuffle, with the 3 year old cousin pulling his hand roughly to go merry-go-round or clawing at Darius’ face. We had a hard time breaking up the two of them because Darius was going to be hurt with his rough actions. He did not understand that Darius was too young for play and yet Darius still keep going towards him!

Sigh. It’s a big headache. On one hand, I like it that he’s not clingy and very sociable with everyone. On the other hand, he really gets too sociable and there is no use teaching him social etiquette since he wouldn’t understand.

Everything is new, nice, friendly and full of curiosity for him since his world has become bigger. He just can’t stop exploring.

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