Life is crazy, in a good way...

It's been a week! The highlight of which is Billy. Surprising, I know.

At the beginning of the week, while it rained buckets, we curled up inside and talked about the future. He told me he didn't want to be a Daddy (even though he thought he'd be a great Daddy), and he wasn't all that interested in having a girlfriend. 'Why not?', I asked. He said, 'Because girlfriends are quite noisy...' I guess when you are 6, girls are quite noisy. I couldn't really offer a counter argument, so I left it alone.

He did tell me that he loved me like a girlfriend. In fact he said, 'I love you more than anything!' (cue: heart melting) and finished off with '... and I'm very sorry that you feel you have to leave me everyday.' (cue: something much less pleasurable.)

Then he went back to school. I didn't think it would go well, after the 'leaving me' comment but... he was really, genuinely happy to be there. We arrive in the morning and he disappears to play. He chases and wrestles and asks questions. He's comfortable. More than comfortable, he's excited.

There are issues, socially. There always will be. But he's trying, he's learning, he's nowhere near frightened anymore. The lovely part is, he's dipping his toe into a whole lot of experiences I never thought he would contemplate - approaching totally new groups of kids, choosing to participate in sign-up style electives on free Fridays, sitting quietly in line with the group waiting for birthday cake at the end of the day (with 38 kids in the class, there's a LOT of birthday cake!!)

We went to the zoo as a group this week, in the pouring rain (fun in itself, really). The trip had been postponed once due to rain, and there was no way it was going to be put off again.

Billy was so excited (as they all were) and for the first time, armed himself with his own noise protection strategies. He brought his noisy hat (a man sized woolen beanie that can be pulled right down over his ears), he brought headphones (designed for garden work) and he made sure I had my iPhone (loaded with his music). In the past, this has been my job. This time, he took care of the planning and the implementation. Gotta love that one.

In the end he only needed the hat. He coped with 36 kids on a bus (why is it that kids freak out and squeal with added glee when they get to take a bus trip???). He coped with taking on the zoo, in the rain, having to accommodate the interests of five kids (for the non parents out there, the adrenaline level of taking responsibility for other people's children on school excursions is something akin to a mapless navigation through a totally new city at night on your first backpacking trip, complete with pressing decisions about eating and pooping). He coped with eating banana bread, made by the class the day before so they all had a snack (yes, he ate strange food, just because everyone else was... insanely novel behaviour).

This week he also experienced what I believe is his first real celebrity crush.

Both he-who-thinks-blogs-are-stupid and I work on a kids TV show called Hi-5. It's a pre-school show, and it's been a part of our working lives since Billy was a year old, so the studio and famous folk are nothing new to him. Two years ago, the cast changed, and one girl in particular has really caught his eye. I won't name her (Casey) but suffice to say, anything she says or does on screen is high-larious to Billy... even the stuff that's not meant to be funny. The sun shines out of this girl, in Billy's eyes (though in truth, she is such a luminous, natural performer, the actual sun almost does shine out of her). Yesterday, when he ran into her at the studio, and she spontaneously invited him over for a hug and a smooch... he blushed and sweated a little and melted into her arms. He was so speechless when I picked him up a little later, that I was worried he was sick.

He told me later he might like a girlfriend after all. I wonder if Casey will wait for him?

He's worth it.