Now before you call Social Services and/or the MIB, let me explain that I don’t mean he’s really an alien. Not in the sense of monstrous exo-skeleton and dripping fangs, or advanced technology and a cold-hatred of humans. No, I simply mean he is separate. Other. Not me.

But that’s obvious you blurt at the screen, that’s a given. He’s a wee person in his own right with his own personality and mind, you shout as one. Yes, I reply, I know that but rather like breathing and the complex, amazing chemistry that happens inside my body without me ever really thinking about it, I’d never actually given the fact that my boy is an individual much thought. I mean, I know he is, but I haven’t really stopped to consider what that actually means

Until, whilst walking out a kitchen with a crappy salad and a mug of tea in my hand, and my mind (obviously horrified by the dullness of my day to day existence) drifted off and wondered about stuff on my behalf to keep itself sane and I suddenly realised just how alien children are.

My lad isn’t quite five yet. He’s a good kid, bright and fast and full of life, never stops yabbering, runs every where, just a typical kid of his age. And suddenly I was aware that in his head is an entire world I know virtually nothing of. Nothing. Nada. Nowt. He is, in many ways, as unknownable as a stranger sat across from me on a bus. And that is an amazing thing to dwell on. I mean, when he was a baby he was simple to understand – all he wanted was to eat, crap & feel safe. Beyond that everything was a bonus – he didn’t know humour, he didn’t know shame, guilt, desire, envy, selflessness. They were not in him. His tiny, growing brain didn’t have the pathways & experience to know them. But then they started to appear.

I remember the questions about humour, the “Is that funny Daddy?” as he tried to work out not only what made things funny, but what ‘funny’ was.

I remember the start of lying, the “I didn’t do it” moments that quickly became “I did” when asked “Are you sure?”.

I remember the first time I realised he was embarrassed after tripping up. He was so small and young… why should he be embarrassed? How did he know to feel embarrassed?

I remember the playing with words as he learnt to speak, the experimental sentences, the made-up ‘insults’ of “Stinky Face” and “Head Pants”.

All these things were clues that I marvelled at individually but never thought to join together to see the deeper pattern, but now he’s been at school for nearly a year and he has altered beyond all recognition. These revelations come thick and fast and each one is as amazing as the last.

He was drawing on a phone last night (the good lady Apeth has a kid’s art app on her phone and he likes to colour things in) and I was watching him. He picked a pen and a colour and began to scrawl around and around and around in a messy oval, quickly filling most of the screen. Suddenly he was aware I was watching and almost without thought said “I’m drawing a cocoon.” It’s fair to say my flabber has never been so gasted. In the past we’ve talked to him about caterpillars and butterflies and he’s learning about gardens at school this week so the genesis of this picture and his knowledge behind it is easy to see, but the fact he was doing it at all, that out of all the things he could have drawn (or not drawn, opting instead to watch TV or climb on me and demand to be tickled) just blew me away. In his head a rich world was bubbling away and at that moment the desire to draw a chrysalis popped to the surface without any input from the two adults sat with him.

Another example from a few nights ago. We were having tea, all sat at the dining table, when Mrs A recalled an incident from the morning school run (I was, at the time, fruitlessly engaged in the conversation all parents know too well: “What did you do at school today?” “Nothing” “Who did you play with?” “Nobody” and this led Mrs A to talk about who he was actually playing with at school despite his claims otherwise). “What about Mia?” Mrs A said with a sly grin (1). I looked at The Boy to see his response and to my total shock he was going bright red and was obviously HUGELY embarrassed. “Don’t tell him, mummy!” he pleaded with ears glowing scarlet. Mrs A, being a woman and therefore not averse to a wee bit of recreational torture, began a game of ‘Will-I-Won’t-I?’ with him as I swivelled my noggin left and right like a tennis fan on speed. Eventually she agreed and promised not to tell me. Obviously she was going to, but not there in front of him, so that night, after he was all tucked up and asleep, she recounted the tale of how Mia’s mum had told her that Mia had been boasting about kissing a boy. My boy. Go on my son was my immediate reaction, but that was quickly followed by the question “Why didn’t he want me to know? Why did he get embarrassed?”. Neither of us had any idea. For some reason known only to him he found the incident, or the probably more the telling of, embarrassing. That’s not something we’ve ever imparted to him. Me & Mrs A kiss in front of him, we’ve never sat him down and said “Never kiss a girl, it’s dirty!” so why would he find that embarrassing? The answer is probably unimportant, rather what is important is that he and he alone had chosen to view it so. Again, this rich world was churning away inside his head.

He’s quite a creative lad. He’s no artist, but he likes to create stuff and a while back Mrs A had the insight to ask him how he came up with his ideas. He pointed at his head and said, with the kind of seriousness only a four year old can achieve, “I’ve got magic in here.”

Now you tell me, where the fuck did that come from?

So you see, I’m just waking up to the fact that my lad, my wee baby whose arse I’ve wiped and whose food I’ve cut up and fed to him, is becoming a person, a proper person, an individual. He’s crossed the threshold and moved from being a small creature totally dependant on me to become a small person who thinks and dreams and wants and feels and reasons by and for himself. He’s becoming unknowable, other, an alien, and I think it’s bloody wonderful!

DA

(1) It may be worth pointing out at this juncture that I can never remember the names or faces of the other kids at his school, they all look the same to me and I know maybe three parents. I have little interest in that school ground PTA crap – I think this a more or less normal attitude for a fella, although it drives Mrs A mad (2).

(2) Not as mad as having to go to a kid’s party or school fund raiser drives me.

p.s. Another example of his own personality is in this silly film. I wanted to show him how stop-go films work so planned to use the toys and creatures to simply parade past, picture after picture, but he got all excited and insisted they had to dance past. Totally not my idea and never mentioned by me at any point (it created a lot more work – I’m not as daft as the name suggests you know) so where did it come from? He also wanted the ending to be like that, with us pulling funny faces. These ideas all come from the bubbling world of magic he keeps in his head and long may it continue

Hello.

Let’s see what happens, shall we? I will probably swear a lot.