Darius’ 19-month Day happens to fall on the second day of the Chinese New Year. So we took this picture of him in the Oriental suit with makeshift backdrops stuck onto a wall using bluetack before we headed out of the house to my in-law’s place. It was impromptu but turned out really well. We gave him two Mandarin oranges and he kept throwing them away and laughing. At one point, he squatted down and ‘sat’ on one of them. Then, Hubby chanted, “1, 2, 3…” to him and he started laughing and joining in saying, “4…” so I could take these pictures of him properly.

The past one month he started speaking out more and he is very into ‘reading‘ alphabets and numbers now. Everytime we go out or anywhere, he would look at the words and say the letters, or look at numbers and say the numbers. Example, when we walked by a block with the block number painted on the walls, he would say, “6….9….”. If there’s an A, he would say, “AAAA!!”. He still shouts the A in a high-pitched instead of saying the name of A properly. Even when we visited the doctor, and there were boxes on a shelf in front of him with the names of a few people, he was reading the letters out…”M…N…” while the Doctor was examining him.  At home, he always chants Bear,ball, bug, ball… all the words of B that he learnt. He likes to hold his figurines of Tiger and Jaguar and come to tell me, “Ah…Der…”, “Wua…”. During the visit to the River Hongbao, I taught him, “Lao Hu” (mandarin for Tiger) and he immediately said, “Ah…Hu….”. So now Tiger is “Ah…Der and Ah…Hu”. Not sure why he wants to put an “Ah” in front of a word. Like, he would also say, “Ah..Ball”.

He has associated a kiss with “爱你 (Ai Ni) ” now. This always got me smiling.  The first time he did that was after the Reunion dinner when his Gu-gu blew him a goodbye kiss, he told her, “爱你 (Ai Ni)” loud and clear which got his Gu-gu so surprised. “You love me?!” She was so pleased. She tried to get him to say somemore but he didn’t. Haha.. So young and know how to flirt already. Subsequently, I discovered that everytime I kissed him on the cheek, he would say “爱你” to me. Yesterday and today, he even initiated it pursing his lips with a ‘muack’ and say immediately, “爱你 (Ai Ni) ” when I carried him. Wow…wants to melt our hearts huh..

His sense of humor is also greater now as he laughs at silly things or antics. Like if we say things funnily in a cartoony voice, he laughs. If things collapses from a high point, he laughs. One day, we were bewildered when he started laughing very heartily at the taxi-stand while Hubby was carrying him. We finally found after a while of observation that he always laughs at the point when a taxi appeared from a slope below and turned into the taxi-stand. From our point of view, we couldn’t see the road so he would see them coming up one by one. He found the appearance very funny. Later on, we also encountered similar situations where cars appeared and disappeared and he just kept laughing. He would also burp and laugh at himself.

Though he laughs a lot, he is also throwing more tantrums. When we take away his milk bottle in the living room because he has finished, he would run away from us and whining all the way to the kitchen “Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!”, hit on the cabinets and then come back and stand some place in the middle showing us an unhappy face. The way he throws tantrums always makes me laugh instead because he reminded me of a caveman running and beating his chest. Sometimes, we do not even know he was throwing a tantrum because we thought he wanted us to hold the thing he brought to us. So we took it from him and he walked off. But he would start whining with his back to us, do his ‘caveman’ run around and come back. Then we would have an “Ah-Ha!” moment realising that he wanted us to do something with it. This showed that he wanted to express his unhappiness but did not dare to make a big fuss because he knew we do not tolerate huge tantrums on the floor. When he started doing that around his 15-month, I always pulled him up and told him that I do not want nonsense from him and to behave well.

He still loves walking a lot and runs really fast now. His poor Daddy had to chase after him in malls while I do the shopping. His stroller is often left with me and I ended up pushing a ‘baby Bag’ around in shops as demonstrated in the above pic. When Hubby couldn’t handle anymore, I would take over and carry him because he would not struggle to get down from my arms. He knows I would not be happy with him not ‘listening to us’. He would even laugh when I tickled his neck and kept kissing me non-stop for no apparent reason. Once Hubby took over however, he struggled to get down and twisted here and there in his arms. Hubby complained about this a lot, saying why he always treats us differently. My explanation is that he knows he can ‘climb’ over Daddy because Daddy isn’t firm with him.

He enjoys climbing stairs and could climb two storeys or more if I let him. But I’m the one who is tired and had to stop. Lately, I’m not always bringing him outdoors. It’s getting boring walking around the estate. Wished we had more places to explore. We compensated by going more natural places during the weekends.

Lastly, he still enjoys reading his books more than playing with toys. Everyday, he would pester us to read a book to him by bringing a favourite book to us. And The index page with the title, right after we read the Cover page. We must not skip that because he would turn back and take our fingers to point to it, expecting us to read it to him too. I kept complaining this to Hubby saying, I do not have time to do anything if he keeps doing this. Then, this few days of public holidays, Daddy at home got the same treatment too where the moment he woke up, Darius would come to him with a book. When we sat to eat our lunch, when we are at the computer doing our stuff, when we are reading a book on the sofa….He just wants us to read to him all the time! I suspect because of the closeness he felt, seeking our attention and not exactly wanting to know what the stories are because he kept taking the same storybooks. I don’t understand this because I give him a lot of attention but he still craves for it all the time.

From the top of my mind: New since 18months update.

Stats: 86.5cm in Height.  12kg+ in Weight.

He has learnt to pronounce phonetic sounds of new alphabets like W (Wa), X (Kriss), Y(Yer..), D (Der), C (Ssss…Seh…Cer…), Still doesn’t know how to make the ‘G’ sound and substitutes that with others. Is trying to pronounce number 5. but gets stuck at “ffff”. Recognises word, ‘Eye’, ‘Car’. Pronounces, “Oooo” for Cow sounds, “Moo”, “Car”, “Bear”, “Ser.”(for circle), “I”. Mandarin words are “花，爱你，不要不要” Said, “Fff..ish” in a small voice today after me and finally noticed the fishes in the fish tank. Calls us with intention saying ‘MaMa’ and ‘Ba’ sometimes. Likes to shout “Ba!” when he enters the lift and when he walks out for no apparent reason.

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