The Naughtiest Baby in Africa

At Neema House we have all sorts of babies with all different personalities. We have quiet babies who don't cry much and we have babies that cry all the time. We have good babies, who eat up their food and go to sleep when they're meant to and we have picky babies who only like to eat certain foods or who are up at all hours of the night. We have sweet babies, calm babies, fussy babies and mischievous babies.

And then we have Angelous.

Angelous is 12 months old exactly and he is adorable. He is one of my favourite babies. He is spoiled rotten and sweet and he loves cuddles and he kisses you by putting his open mouth on you and saying, "MWAH!" loudly at the same time. He will kiss you anywhere - feet, knees, shoulders. One of our other babies, Anna, is not a fan of being touched by the other babies, but for some reason Angelous loves her. He has been known to rush up to her, knock her down onto her stomach and then kiss her loudly and repeatedly on the bottom.

Angelous was recently moved into the toddler room and it's clear that he misses his friends. When he comes back to the big baby room for a visit he runs around kissing everyone and he and the other babies bump foreheads in greeting, laughing the whole time. When we go for a walk and he sees his little friend, Baraka, they smile and laugh and hold their hands out to each other.

However, despite his general sweetness, Angelous is the naughtiest baby I have ever come across. Most of the other babies go about their own business, play with each other and generally do not make a nuisance of themselves. Angelous on the other hand, cannot help but interfere with everything. The other day I was sitting on the mat dressing Deborah after her bath, when Angelous rushed in to the room. Instead of following his nannies request that he go to his bath with her, he ran over to Deborah and promptly sat down on her face, laughing cheekily the whole time at our horrified exclamations.

Angelous takes his first steps at nine-and-a-half months old

He also recently developed a vendetta against poor Beulah, who cannot crawl and therefore cannot get away from him. He will run over and hit her repeatedly on the head with a rattle or small toy. Someone is always shouting, "Acha!" (Stop!) or "Usi piga!" (Don't hit!) when he's around. "Usi piga Susie!" "Usi piga Hannah!" "Usi piga dada yako!" (Don't hit your sister!). The list goes on. Today I lay down on the floor in the toddler room (always a risky move) and before I knew what was happening, Angelous had run over and hit me violently on the head with a tiger (you can put your hand inside it like a puppet, but it is very hard and frighteningly lifelike). When I sat up to get away from him he pulled my hair until none of it was left in its plait anymore.

Angelous about to hit his sweet sister, Angel.

Yesterday, he didn't want to sleep at nap time (not an altogether uncommon occurrence) and instead went into the kitchen where the nannies were serving themselves their lunch. He pranced round the kitchen, a wedge of orange in his hand, touching all the nannies on their legs as he went past. He went over to the hot stove and put his hand out, waited for the nannies to shout "ACHA!" and then threw his head back and laughed. Then he went to the cupboard, opened the door and threw his orange inside, laughing the whole time when someone had to come and fish it out for him. Then he would dance around the kitchen again and return to the stove, waiting for the inevitable, "Acha!" to come.

Everyone else is asleep, but Angelous is up eating mandazi with the adults at chai time!

A common Angelous face - usually provoked by someone putting him down when he wanted to be carried around. This is usually followed by him throwing himself backwards on the floor, arching his back and having a full-blown tantrum. Who needs the terrible twos when you have a baby like this?!

When he is naughty the nannies say, "Corner!" and put him in time out facing the wall. Unfortunately he usually just tips his head back and laughs at you. Otherwise he will find a speck on the wall or the floor to look at and will sit there giggling at it, as if it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. Then most of the time he will jump up and go right back to hitting Beulah or knocking Ibrahim down or stealing a pacifier off Angel.

Angelous also (rudely, might I add) likes to put his head up ladies skirts. It started off with him hiding under the end of Susan's kitenge (a type of cloth used for skirts, dresses, etc) and she would say, "Angelous iko wapi?" or "Where is Angelous?"Then it progressed to him going up to other people and putting his head right up their skirt, much to everyone's amusement and the occasional stranger's embarrassment.

Over the past couple of months the bigger babies have been starting to eat finger food. Angelous loves this, but strangely prefers not to pick the food up in his fingers. Instead, he puts it on the floor (doesn't matter whether you're inside or outside or the floor is clean or dirty), gets down on his hands and knees and then slurps the food up off the floor with his mouth like some sort of small animal. It's very amusing to watch!

Today it was Angelous' first birthday. He shared the birthday celebrations with his twin sister, Angel and another little boy, Baraka. I made cake this afternoon and while all the other babies were happily playing in their rooms, Angelous was prancing around the kitchen, licking chocolate icing off the beaters and screaming blue murder when anyone tried to take them off him.

Between the three of them they must have eaten half a cake themselves!

Angelous is an outrageous baby - he kisses the other babies and flirts with the nannies. We always say that Angel is going to have a terrible time keeping him out of trouble when he is older! He is spoiled by everyone and is ridiculously sweet and absolutely lovable, but he is without a doubt, the naughtiest baby in Africa!

xoxo,
-Hannah