Adventures realizes he is growing up.

He's only eight.  Won't be nine for another four months.  However, it was literally over night that he just grew up.

Yesterday, he played with a ten year-old boy at the pool for hours.  He came home and said he wanted to go to some website and play this game that his ten year old friend shared with him.  While both children have their own laptop, they don't know about the internet yet.  We want to keep it that way.  We have loaded certain websites on their computers, and they have used them for homeschool, but that's all.  I went to the site, signed him up, and then, told him that I don't want him on it yet.  The rules of the site included no dating.  Yeah, well… that was all I had to see and realize, he is just too young for this.  After reading how they should never give out their passwords, etc., I realized, this is beyond a Minecraft type of game.  This is a social thing, and no, I don't want that for my seven and eight year old children.  So, he accepted that I was getting rid of it, and he will just have to continue to enjoy his Minecraft app on his iPod.

Today, he came home from church, worked hard to clean up his room that I thought was clean, and then, played with an even older boy at the pool today.  Before bed, he refused to play Candy Land with his little sister and Dad, saying, "That's a baby game."  I agree, but I would have played, had I not taken an "after dinner nap" to sleep off the sun exposure.)

I just went to check on the kidlets before I settled in for the night, and that clean up he did after Mass- was actually a "get rid of anything that a child might associate with" clean up.  There is nothing on his dresser.  No pictures from our Disney trip a few yeas ago, nor his Lego plane he and Daddy worked for hours on a week ago, or even his walkie-talkies.  All cleared away. Nothing that would tell you that a little boy wakes to play in that room.  Not even his night light.

My heart just sank.  I love that he is growing up.  But I want him to enjoy his childhood.  Don't rush growing up my favorite boy-migit!  He has been developmentally behind his entire life.  On his way out of the pool today, he wrapped his towel over his head as a handkerchief and pretended he was wearing a dress or a skirt.  I tried to tell him I loved his cape, but he insisted it wasn't a cape.

He is still a silly mystery to me, and I will continue to embrace his confusion and his love for being snuggled and rocked, and then, when he choses to clean out any indication that he is a child, I will have to accept that as well.  Until he tells me he doesn't believe in tiny fairies that bring money to him for lost body parts, we should be okay.