Since his birth, Catherine and I could feel Darius’ affinity with music. It has in fact become an instrument for us to stop his fussing and crying. Whenever we started singing songs to him, he would immediately open up his eyes wide and look at us attentatively, stopping what he was doing.

This still applies to him now, as we will use singing as a way to get his attention and co-operation, like during his meal and play times. We also sing/play soothing songs to get him to sleep quietly and fuss-free.

Musical Toys

These days, his favourite toy is the Leapfrog Musical Table that we bought him six months ago (see Musical Table for Darius (Part 2)). Before he learnt to walk, we had removed the legs of the table so he could sit down and play with it. Now with the legs re-attached, the musical table has become his favourite pit stop whenever he’s in the living room.

He will walk towards the table, spin the maraca roller (his favourite instrument of the table since Day 1) so that it starts playing the ABC Song (which is one of his favourite songs). If I sing along with the tune, Darius will quickly look up and walk towards me, observing the movements of my mouth before walking back to the table to spin the roller again. He can keep repeating this same cycle without getting bored at all (I know ‘cos I have often entertained him by singing the same song over and over again). ^^|

Also, if the table was not set to play his favourite ABC Song, he knows he has to flip the pages of the book in the center of the table so that his favourite song will be played instead.

That goes to show how much he adores the song and probably the reason why he had attempted to sing it when he was 10 months old. Sadly, we hardly get to hear him singing it again nowadays (or we might not have noticed it when he was singing).

Besides the musical table, his other favourite toys are also musical in nature, such as the Vtech Rhyme & Discover Book, Sing with me Piano and Musical DJ Junior (see Two New Electronic Toys for Darius). He develops a much longer attention span on them compared to his other toys.

Our first Vtech purchase was the Sing with me Piano, and since then we have preferred Vtech products over other brands as they are of good quality, are more interesting and thus worth the price.

Songs

We discovered that Darius responds uniquely to several songs:

Hearing us sing the Humpty Dumpty or Do Re Mi songs, he will kick his legs or babble excitedly, especially during meal times when he’s seated at his high chair.

It didn’t take us long to realise the reason behind his reactions — these were two of the songs Catherine used to sing to him almost nightly when Darius was still in her womb (see 19th weeks- introducing music). It’s amazing how he manages to still remember these songs while in the womb, as we hardly sing these songs again after he was born until just a few months ago.

Another song he responds differently is the mandarin song 三轮车. This has almost become a must-sing song before each of his meal times. Darius often turns his head away when we tries to feed him his first spoon, probably due to his cautious nature (“I’d rather be careful than sorry”).

However, the moment this song comes out from our mouth, he will turn his head back to face us and obediently open his mouth wide. We are puzzled over his response but since we’ve found out this useful technique to make him eat obediently, we are of course making good use of it! ^^

月亮代表我的心 is another mandarin song that I’ve sung to him when he was in the womb and I still sang it to him when I ran out of songs to sing. Well, this is not exactly a children’s song but I’ve chosen it over the others due to its softer tunes.

Just recently, I was singing this song to him while he was drinking his milk. I happened to put in more emotions while singing it, resulting in the song sounding pretty sad and sentimental.

Guess what? Darius’ lips started pursing downwards with a sad look and he began to tear! I had not expected this but quickly reassured and calmed him down. I wasn’t doing anything else before he teared so the only explanation was due to the sad song he just heard. I’m amazed that he could actually feel and appreciate the sadness contained in the song and got emotional over it. This could be that he’s born as a Cancer and Cancerians tend to be more emotional. As a result, I have not sung this song to him again after this episode, in case he gets all teary again. ^^|

This pretty much sums up most of the observations we have of Darius when it comes to music.

Catherine is rather talented in music herself, so I’m not surprised if Darius has inherited some of her genes in this aspect. I’ve always jokingly suggested to her that we should groom him into a pop singer since there are always local talent shows ongoing but she prefers to have him play a musical instrument instead (e.g. becoming a piano player). ^^

At the end of the day, as long as Darius enjoys what he is doing and has the talent for it, we will let him decide for himself what are the dreams he wishes to pursuit.

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