Five year old

Mini-D is five years old in the morning. Somehow I have managed to raise another human to half a decade without even noticing. What happened?!

And he is fabulous. Okay, the last year has mostly been a write-off from my perspective, but he has been at a totally new kindergarten in a whole new language and culture and despite a few expected hiccups, he bounds in every morning with only a "Tschuss!" (only 3 weeks in, remember) and out every afternoon full of cheer and excitement. Almost every day he comes home with a new word to tell me, he is excited about me getting a job in a "Kindergarten for grown-ups" and today, we watched the episode of Doctor Who where Rose leaves and at the end he looked at me, quivered, said "Mummy, the Doctor is sad. And it's making me sad too!" and burst into tears. Oh, my baby.

He asked me questions about animal testing the other day, and I had to balance giving him truthful information and not terrifying the crap out of him.

He loves to "do art" and is scathing about what he considers "not real art". He wants to figure out phonics faster than I can figure out what order to teach him the sounds. (Both his drawings, and his written sentences, are adorably hilarious.) He can add single figures and tries to work out subtraction using his fingers. When he feels nervous, he is comforted by having some spare kisses to keep in his pockets. He is still suspicious of new foods. He is far more fond of Coca Cola than I would like. He is constantly trying to figure out his identity, sometimes about gender, occasionally about nationality, often about our family.

He still wants to cuddle, a lot, and he loves to have help with things, especially things that he doesn't really need help with. He will happily hold hands and kiss and hug in public. He is still so wonderfully carefree.

I think I'm doing okay.