From Mama,

To Darius at 17months old,

A Recap of 16 months going onto 17months old…

You have grown standing tall at 84.5 -85 cm. No wonder you could reach things that I never thought possible. Couldn’t get your weight on our inaccurate scales but you should still be around 11.5kg.

For the past month, you were very happy. Firstly, I finished my last project and concentrated fully on taking care of you. Most of my time was spent in just hugging you, cooking for you, feeding you and playing with you. You can’t stop laughing and running to hug me every now and then. Finally, Mama is not staring at the computer most of the time but at you. Because of this, you also started blabbling more and expanding your language. Secondly, we went for a beach holiday and you have both Mama and Papa with you 24 hours a day, enjoying everything with you.

Of course, you still threw tantrums when we refused to let you walk in certain directions and your new style is to do an ‘ostrich’, bending down with your head and hands on the floor while your butt sticks into the air. It still does not work on me though because I would not let you have your way if it meant endangering yourself or deviating from our purpose.

For Motorskills,

You are better at the shape sorter now and could actually fit in some of the shapes, like circle, star and rectangle independently. You are also good at putting items into narrow necks of bottles and putting one item into the space of another item.

You enjoyed opening and closing the bi-fold bathroom door and kept doing it. This generated a scolding from me because you would put your left palm onto the folding portion as you pushed with the right hand and it might result in an accident.

You did many interesting things which were recorded in Darius Snippets #6 and #7. Mainly, you have been trying to get things on a higher place by tiptoeing. Always aiming for something on every table you come across. We had to keep things even higher to prevent you dragging them to the floor. You also know to get to things on your bookshelf by standing on your little chair.

Your Interest & Behaviour

You had been very expressive with your actions and would actually put up your hands to indicate carry. Or Wave Bye Bye when someone waves to you. Finally, you waved to grandmother too. You also waved bye bye when strangers were waving to each other at the airport and waved when you see someone in the TV show waved. *grin* You would stand beside my chair while I’m at the computer and pull my hand towards you so I could carry you to sit on my lap. You would take Daddy’s hand  while reading with him to point to something in the book which warmed Papa’s heart.

You suddenly discovered chopsticks and metal forks on our Overseas trip and now can’t stop grabbing them when we are using it. You would use the chopstick to poke at our mouth and fork to stab the table. It’s no longer just straw.

The past month seemed to be Papa’s Month. If he left the room while you were in it, you would erupt in loud cries that go on and on as if he had left you forever. This was frustrating to me since I was always just beside you! Your cries would not stop til he came back and do the pacifying. If anyone leaves the house closing the door on you, you would cry hard with tears streaming down your face til we find something to distract you. You just cannot bear us ‘closing the door’ on you.

Interestingly one day when Papa returned home later than usual and you did not see him after you woke up from your late afternoon nap, you actually kept whining and crying. When I asked you where Papa was, you kept looking at the kitchen and door hoping that he would suddenly appear. Then surprisingly, when he finally came back, you totally ignored him, refusing to look at him or go to him, as if protesting, “where were you when I needed you?”. I read before that this ‘ignoring of close ones’ after a period of absence is a child’s defense of their feelings, to protect themselves from being hurt by being too close, in case they were abandoned again. Maybe you were doing this to him.

You still enjoy reading with Papa before bedtime and laughed at some readings he do, wanting him to read one book after another, whining when it was time for bed. In fact, that seemed to be the only thing you do with him nowadays during the night besides taking an evening walk.

Interestingly, you would place your head onto Papa’s back while he was seated. For me, you would plant a kiss right on my mouth and wanted me to tickle you all the time so you could giggle and giggle forever. On the day you turned 17month, while we were watching you play the musical table, you ran to Papa and planted a kiss on his mouth. So affectionate you were.

You were also a laughter generating machine. Once you laugh, you just can’t stop! You would keep laughing on purpose to get us laughing or just laughing for the sake of laughing til we grew worried and had to stop you. Sometimes, you would look at me smile at you and laugh even more. Therefore, I really had to put on a serious face though I was infected by your laughter so that you do not laugh til something serious happen. You would even laugh at strangers to get them to laugh back, knowing the power of laughter you had. We felt blessed to have you brighten up our lives.

You have new fears as your understanding grew stronger. You were afraid of the ‘f’ letter making sound on the LeapFrog fridge word builder, afraid of Professor Snake from the Leapfrog DVD making the Ssss sound. You disliked water sprinkling over your head, getting water into your eyes when you didn’t mind them in the past. You were afraid of haunting music in the chinese DVD story. You were afraid of new strange places and wouldn’t walk til you were more comfortable.

For Speech/Understanding/Sounds,

You finally started saying actual words or imitating our speech again. Most of them recorded in Snippets #6 and #7.

The Sound of the month would be “Ssss” or “Aaa…sss” because you can’t stop saying this, even after you shivered with fear watching Professor Snake. You would play the ABC song on the musical table, ran to Papa who sang the song to pronounce your “Ssss” or “Aaa…sss”  just before “R” was going to sound out and laughed when he continued the song. The “Ssss” come partly from the 一二三四 (“Yi, Er. San, Si”) I’ve been teaching you to say. You would only say, “Yi Er…. then “ssssss…” and still wouldn’t say “San”.

Darius laughing at Papa singing the ABC song

The Word of the Month in Chinese would be, “喝奶奶“. while For English, it was Orange (see “Or as In Orange“) where you could only pronounce “or”. You always laugh after saying the word as if it was very amusing. This word became very useful during our Overseas trip. All we had to do to get the camera-shy you to look at the camera was to say, “Dar, Orange…Or…!!!” and you would look up at us and say, “Or..” then smile/giggle after that. Moment thus captured.

I also realised that you DO actually know what Orange means because just the other day, I took out an orange from the fridge and you immediately went, “Or!” the moment you saw it. This surprised me yet again cos I had thought you were just copying my speech.

So your vocabulary actually changed from some imitations to new words like these:

1. 不要 （more correctly pronounced and stronger this month)
2. Papaya: “Mua..Ya..” and, “ya..ya ya..” (imitation of our speech)
3. 我要 (own accord)
4. 睡觉了(own accord)
5. Or… as in Orange (own accord)
6. 喝奶奶 (own accord)
7. 嗡嗡嗡 (imitation of song)
8. 娃娃 Wa Wa (imitation of song)
9. Purple: I was teaching you colours of the Froot Loop cereal and you repeated “Pur pur” after me. That’s the only colour name beside Orange which you always MUST say after me once I said it.

You understood to pick up things on the floor when I asked you to and hold them til I point you to where to put them back. For books, you knew to move to the bookshelf to put them back. You understood to take up shoes to wear before we go out. You understood me today when I asked you whether you want to listen and be a good boy to finish the learning game we were doing. You actually sat down when I asked that and continued with the game.

Caring for You

You started the month by not eating and fussing at every mealtime. I was frustrated with you because I thought this had happened before and was over. I tried to cook a variety of stuff, like pancakes, marcoroni, gave you soft rice with soup but you just kept rejecting. We then took the overseas trip where you started eating all kinds of stuff because I couldn’t cook porridge for you. Guess what? Your appetite came back up and now you are still eating and eating. You did reject the porridge I cooked right after the trip but subsequently, you had been alright with it and now seemed to be more plump than before. Your face has also grown rounder. We also discovered that you could eat rice and like it. Hope this continues because I really dislike scolding you over food matters.

I think that’s about it. The above summarised what I felt and know about you, Darius, from 16-17months.

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