Yay times.

Oooooh my goodness. The past few weeks have been full of happy squee moments regarding le boy.

So first. This was probably a month ago now, but he was on worship team for the first time since maybe June. I wasn't expecting anything since he hadn't come off stage to talk to me in months. But I sat in my usual spot in front anyway, and of course despite the lack of expectation I was still hoping he'd come talk to me.
Sure enough, as soon as practice was done, he came down and talked to me for a few minutes. Cue first round of happiness.
The weird thing was when he came to talk to me between services. My mommy was talking to me while the worship team finished their last song, and he came over and waited a little ways off. She noticed him standing off to the side and she went back to the video booth, so then he came over and sat down to talk for the 10 minutes between services.
Since some of our friends and I usually go to lunch after service, I'd invited him to lunch with us. He said sure, but we didn't know where we'd be going at that point. So after second service, I went and found them and asked about lunch. Then I went up on stage to talk to him while waiting for the other two. Unfortunately the restaurant chosen was a bit pricier, so he ended up not going, but I was still pretty happy about talking to him so much at church when it's been months since that's happened, or even since he's been at church at all (his house burned down in July so he's been dealing with that and lots of work).

THEN, almost 3 weeks ago, I was sitting in my usual second service spot off to the side, and he walked in and came right over and sat down next to me. Normally I can't help but watch for him so I can wave if he comes in, but for whatever reason I wasn't paying attention. So it was pretty encouraging that he came to sit with me even without me doing anything.
That Sunday also happened to be the week of the church picnic. One of our friends asked us if we were going, and we both said yes. But then the friend ended up not going, and we didn't know who else our age was going to be there. I was ok with that, since it meant that if he went we'd pretty much only have each other to talk to, but when he realized we still had half an hour before the picnic started, he started thinking he might not go. He had shopping to do, and he didn't really want to wait too long. I talked him into going, and we ended up meeting over at the park.
Turns out there were other people our age there, but they didn't show up until after lunch had been started. So the only time it wasn't just us talking was when I got to hold my FAVORITE baby on the planet, and since I was so distracted by the baby I hardly talked to him at all, he was like "...well, I'm gonna go talk to other people for a bit."
But then lunch started and we got in line and started talking, and then we talked for basically the whole picnic even after other people showed up. One of the guys we talked to asked us if we were dating or married, and I'm pretty sure my face turned red. I was just like "No..." and avoided eye contact, and he was like, "No, we're friends."
After we'd finished eating and the picnic was winding down, I said, "I don't wanna go home and do homework." He said he didn't really want to go shopping. I said, "I kinda want to go to Barnes and Noble."
To my surprise, he replied, "Me too. You wanna go?"
So we went to Barnes and Noble, and then walked around town center for a couple hours and just talked. And we did stop in at AE so he got at least part of his shopping done. It was just a lot of fun and honestly... really out of character for him, because we've never hung out together outside of church, just the two of us.

SO THIS WEEK, I texted a bunch of people asking about bowling tonight. He never replied, so I called him today to see if he wanted to go (he's not super consistent about replying to texts). He answered the phone really calmly, but then as soon as I asked about bowling, his voice just got super animated. I haven't heard him talk like that except maybe a couple times, but it was still one of those things that was like... ok, maybe he's happy to talk to me. Since he said he'd have to check about transportation, I still don't know if he's coming. Hopefully he is, since one of the girls just said her fiancé is getting into town early so she won't be there, and the other two people that are going are a couple and I don't want to be the third wheel. But we'll see. I really hope he makes it, and he sounded like he really does want to come.

But yeah. I'm happy. And it's not much, but it's something, and it's definitely more interest being shown than usual.