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When the crayons started to pelt his breastplate, Din didn't give any kind of react at first because he was too stunned with surprised. However the baby's laughs soon brought him out of his stunned state. He was doubly glad the baby couldn't see his face right then because one moment he was smiling at the sound of the ad'ika laughing. The smile vanished in quick fashion when another crayon hit the center of his chest. He sighed, not liking what he need to do in the next couple of minutes but he also knew this wasn't something he couldn't allow to continue.
The baby was about to raise another crayon in the air with his powers as his giggles quietened down, but he never got the chance to complete the act. Instead of getting a giggle out of repeating his naughtiness, the baby found himself releasing a squawk when his father lifted him off of the ground with hands carefully placed underneath his arms. He's placed against his chest as his father climbed up the ladder, then straight over to his pram they went where he was deposited back inside. His wide eyes stared up at his father in disbelief, and his bottom lip started to tremble as his father spoke in a stern voice.
"Do you know why I put you back into your pram, ad'ika?" Din asked, crossing his arms as he gazed down at his ad'ika.
Of course the baby didn't respond in any way other than lowering his ears while his eyes began to shine with tears.
Oh no! None of that! Din thought. You might hate seeing him cry, Djarin, but what you're doing is for his own good and yours. You can't let him keep getting away with doing things that he, one some level, he knows and he understands is wrong behavior!
He took a deep breath, and told the baby in a firm but not harsh voice. "I put you back in your pram because you were throwing things at me and weren't playing nicely with your toys like I had ask you to. Now, I think you need to stay in your pram until you calm down enough to play nicely like you were asked."
The baby whimpered.
Din lifted a finger, and wagged it. "Ahh, none of that, ad'ika. What you were doing was very unacceptable behavior, especially when you started throwing your toys at me. That's not very nice and we don't throw things at other people because you could hurt them. Now I know I am wearing armor and the crayons bounced off of me without hurting me, but that still didn't make it right or okay to do. Now you can just sit there in your pram or lay down but I want you to stay there for awhile."
The baby continued to stare at him sadly, his little lip trembling and his little nose started sniffling.
Din hated to see him being so close to tears but he refused to give into the ad'ika this time. He knew that this was too important of a lesson the ad'ika needed to learn. After another moment of baring the baby's sad gaze, he went to sit down in his seat.
Din's gaze was directed forwards towards the transparisteel for a few seconds, but he expected the child to stay put right where he'd left him, and for him to be doing what he'd last been doing when he was looking at him. He expected to see the child sitting there was his little arms crossed, pouting and sniffling pitifully over the fact he was in time out. Of course this was not what he saw when he ventured a peek backwards. Instead he saw the little body hanging off the pram by his little hands with a panicked look on the little face as the child realized the floor was a lot further down than he'd realized.
Din hurriedly got up, and rushed forward to grab the child by the waist before he dropped to the floor. In response the baby shrieked, began to squirm in his father's hands, and kicked his little legs in the air.
"Hey hey hey! Stop that right now!" Din said as he turned him around so the child was looking at him.
The baby scowled at him, and hit his little hands on Din's gloved hands, babbling angrily.
Din didn't know what he was saying to him, but he knew the intention behind it wasn't very nice because he was also bringing his little hands down on top of Din's, as hard as he could. The blows didn't hurt, nor could Din actually feel them they were so light. Before he put the baby back down in his pram, he raised him to eye level.
"What has gotten into you today? Huh? You're usually so easy going and nice. Why are you hitting me and throwing things at me? Hmm?"
The child babbled something, and made a gesture that knew to be in in the refresher's general direction.
"Oh, I see. You want your mythosaur, and you want him now? Is that it?"
The baby stared at him a second, before he made a noise his adoptive father knew to be an affirmative one.
"Well, I'm sorry, ad'ika, but it needed to be washed because it was very dirty. You have to let things dry after they've been washed, and sometimes that process times more time than you might it like to. This is the case with your mythosaur. Now I know that you love your mythosaur, buddy, and you're upset because you can't play with him while him dries, but that's no excuse to throw things at or for you to start hitting me, your buir. Neither of those are nice, and neither are they things you should do to someone else." As he spoke, Din watched the ad'ika's face, to determine whether or not the baby was understanding anything he said. "Do you understand what I am trying to tell you, ad'ika?"
The baby cocked his little head, and looked up at Din. Din noted the baby didn't look or seem as angry as he had been mere seconds ago. Perhaps that meant the ad'ika actually understood, at least a little, what he had been trying to tell him. He didn't know if the ad'ika was capable of feeling sorry over his actions, since he was after all still a young child, even at fifty years old, and so he wouldn't require an apology from the ad'ika. Instead, he put the child down in the pram, and returned to his seat.
A wail pierced the air the moment his back was turned to the child. He swung back around to see the baby standing up holding onto the side of the pram. His little head was titled back, his eyes were tightly shut, and his little mouth was wide open as he cried hysterically.
Din started to ran back to him, and scoop him up, but he stopped when he saw the baby opened one of his little eyes just ever so slightly to look in his direction. He then closed it tightly shut again when he saw that Din wasn't moving towards him any longer. He upped the volume of his wail, and veered off into sobs that if this were at any other time, would have had Din snatching him up to check his tiny body for injury.
But not today.
It was because Din could see how the baby was trying to play on his feelings and sympathy to get him to take him out of the pram again. The ad'ika wanted to have his own way, and he wanted to have it right then. Well, his buir decided, he was not going to have it just then, not matter how much he cried. He cringed underneath his helmet as the baby continued to up the volume on his crying. So to spare himself of the noise of the baby throwing a true tantrum, Din reached up, and shut off his helmet's auditory sensors. This wouldn't stop him from hearing the baby, but it would decrease the volume of the sound greatly, and make the noise easier to ignore. Then, he decided, he'd just let the little one cry until he had cried himself out.
In the meantime, the baby continued to sob as though his little heart were broken instead of him being so angry with his buir. He wanted out of the pram and he wanted out of NOW! He wanted to play, and he wanted to play with his favorite stuffie right now! Why was his buir being such a big poo doo head? First the big poo doo head took away his mythosaur, and then wouldn't give it back to him when he wanted it! Big, fat, mean old poo doo head! Now he had put him back into the stupid pram where he'd already been made to spend too much of his life as it was! He hated being made to stay in the pram, and he only ever wanted to be in it when he was asleep!
He continued to cry, crying louder when the poo doo head didn't pay him any attention. He cried as loud as his lungs let him cry, and still the man continued to stay in the pilot's chair. The man wouldn't even look in his direction!
The crying, and sobbing continued for half an hour, then approached an hour. The tears, Din noted, had stopped rolling down the ad'ika's face some time ago, and his breath was starting to hitch from the hiccups he'd worked himself into. Din had long since started occupying himself with the cleaning of his blaster. He steals glances every now and again, to make certain the baby isn't trying to climb out of his pram again, but other than checking for this, he ignores the baby's tantrum throwing as best he can.
To himself, at least, he admits the sound of the baby's seeming brokenhearted sobs are getting to him. The longer the ad'ika continues to cry like there's no tomorrow, and the discipline he's been forced to dole out to the baby for throwing things at him is one of the worst things that he's ever had to do. The crying continues to hammers away at his resolve to see this through. The only reason he doesn't give in is because Din knows that allowing the baby to get away with everything and to have everything he wants just with one look of those big, dark tear-filled eyes is not a good thing for either the ad'ika or for him. He knows his ad'ika has got to learn to listen to him at some point, and this moment in time is as good of a time as any to make an attempt to teach this lesson to his son.
The crying finally stops at just over an hour, and Din prays the ad'ika didn't make himself sick with his efforts to get his buir to relent. Din judges it's safe to turn on the helmet's auditory sensors now and does so. His ears are immediately greeted with soft, snoring sounds. Din's head snaps around, and he looks over at the pram. The baby is nowhere to be seen, and judging by the snores, Din knows he's asleep. Din is quiet as he puts down his weapon, and even more quiet as he slips over to the pram's side.
It's just as he suspected. The baby is sprawled out on his back fast asleep. The ad'ika does not awake with the presence of his buir at his side. Nor does he awaken when Din pulls the blankets up, and over his little body. The baby had exhausted himself with the massive tantrum he had thrown, and Din decides that allowing him to have his second daily nap a little earlier than usual. He goes to sit down in his seat, and thinks about the struggle between them that had happened today.
He hoped when the baby woke up, his cheerful disposition will be returned so that they could both enjoy the rest of their day together. Din didn't like having to put the ad'ika down in his pram during hours he should be playing as that felt wrong somehow. However, Din realized, it was also the right thing to do as the baby needed to learned to listen to him since Din was only trying to keep him safe, He knows that playing with a wet toy wasn't a matter of life or death, far from it. But he also knows that there may come a time when the ad'ika would need to actually do as Din told him to do, so that harm would not befall him. This is why today, Din had put his foot down and didn't back off when it came to enforcing what he had told his son.
The minutes ticked by slowly, and when an hour was almost up, Din checked on the ad'ika one last time before he slipped away from the pram to go to the refresher. He wanted to check on the baby's precious stuffed toy, with the hopes the toy was dry now. If it wasn't dry when the baby woke up, then Din would just have to continue to insist that the ad'ika wait for it to dry. He wished he had a way to speed up the process but it was what it was and his son would have to just learn a little patience.
Not a minute later, he entered the room on his ship that although it had always served his needs adequately, it was still little more than a broom closet. Din had left the toy to the side by the basin one used for handing washing after using the refresher, and since the ad'ika had come to live with Din, a part time bathing tub. He removed one of his gloves so he could tell if the toy was properly dried, and caught himself sighing in relief when he found not one damp spot on the beloved toy.
As Din left the refresher, he considered whether he should return the mythosaur to its earlier spot in the baby's play area or, should he just carry with him to present to the ad'ika when he woke up? Presenting the baby with his stuffie the moment he opened his eyes would be the best way to be assured his bright disposition returned. Din had not liked or enjoyed having to deal with a grumpy baby, and not just because the ad'ika had been throwing things in an angry fit. No, he didn't like it because he didn't like seeing his son with a frown on his sweet, little green face. He would much rather see the smile that lit up a room, and brought his heart light on the darkest of days.
It seemed that his decision was already made then, and he tucked the mythosaur underneath his arm then climbed back into the control room. After one glimpse at the pram he knew the baby would be waking up soon but not for a few more minutes. So he set the mythosaur on the controls board, right where his son was sure to see it the moment he opened his little eyes, and he seated himself to wait. A minute or so later, he heard an excited squeal, and when he turned around. The baby was already standing up in his pram, his little arms held out, making grabby hands towards his beloved toy. The baby started leaning forward to get closer to the mythosaur toy in his excitement, so much that Din had to put out a hand to steady him before he tumbled out of the pram. The baby whined, and made grabby hands again towards the toy.
"Okay, buddy, hold on hold on. I'll give it to you." He grabbed the stuffed toy, and placed it in the waiting little hands of his son.
The baby heaved a contented sigh, and plop down in the pram. He hugged the mythosaur as best he could with the toy being so much bigger than him.
Din couldn't help the smile that crossed his lips as he watched the baby. The boy loved that toy, there was no denying that, and Din decided there that the next time it needed to be washed he would do so after the baby was in bed for the night. He knows even that plan would be tricky since sometimes his son insisted on sleeping with the mythosaur in his pram, but it was an executable plan nonetheless. Din knew that he would do anything to avoid a repeat of what had happened earlier today.
Anything at all.
Din watched the baby cuddle with the toy for a few minutes and then an idea came to him.
"How about we go below and you can take a ride on your friend? Hmm? How does that sound to you, ad'ika?"
The baby squealed in response.
Taking that as an affirmative yes, the Mandalorian picked up his baby.
Together they went below, the baby babbling happily away, tightly holding onto his now dry beloved toy.