KEY POINTS:
The first thing you notice about the most famous 6-year-old in New Zealand is how well he's looking - cheerful and nicely rounded, not at all like a boy who's been scratching out a survivalist existence in the bush for the past five months.
"Hi, I'm good," says
Jayden Headley, shaking hands and answering queries with a polite smile.
He's got a new haircut, new clothes and a tummy with a distinct bulge.
He looks much taller than in the photographs that have been seen hundreds of times since he disappeared from the Hamilton Public Library. His eyes are bright and busy. They flick between our cameras and then to the BMX bike his father Chris Jones gave him as a welcome home present.
"Is that for the television?" Jayden asks, his eyes on the camera. "Are we going to be on the television again?"
"No. It's for the newspaper," Jones tells him.
Jayden, obviously aware of his celebrity, smiles as Jones recounts a visit to McDonald's on Thursday where his son was asked whether he was "the boy who was lost".
"Jayden replied, 'Yeah, I was lost, but now I'm found," Jones says as Jayden nods approvingly.
Jones says the past few days with Jayden have "been like having Christmas every day".
He had initially been fearful of Jayden's reaction towards him, but says after only 10 minutes together his son was laughing and giggling.
"I was concerned that he may have been brainwashed to the point that he thought I was this big fat ogre - but there was none of that."
On his first night home, Jones took Jayden to the family's new 1ha Whatawhata block, "one of my son's favourite places".
"Jayden said to me, 'Dad, you've done an awful lot of work around here'. We talked about that and then Jayden said, 'I was thinking about you when I was away. I said 'did you really?' and he said, 'Yeah, I thought about you a lot, Dad.'
"I said 'that's nice to hear.' I then told him how I thought about him every day, too.
"Just to hear him say that was amazing. When you talk to a child and you're getting comments like that, it makes you realise that it doesn't matter what is said, they will form their own impressions."
Jones was reunited with Jayden on Tuesday after the boy's grandfather Dick Headley, 68, handed himself into Hamilton police after five months spent in hiding. He is now in custody on kidnapping charges, and so far has refused to give police any clues as to where he may have taken the boy.
The first shots in the acrimonious custody battle between Jones and Jayden's mother, Kay Skelton, who is also facing kidnapping charges, were fired in 2001, just seven months after Jayden was born.
Since then, there have been claims and counterclaims of physical and psychological abuse, questions over paternity and suggestions of a "continued conspiracy to keep Chris Jones out of Jayden's life".
One claim was that Jones kicked his son down a set of stairs and then as further punishment made him wait for an hour outside in the rain.
The claims of physical abuse were the subject of a police complaint and a subsequent investigation by Child Youth and Family, but couldn't be proven.
This allegation is among several made against Jones, his current partner Anita Hall and her 7-year-old daughter Jessie.
A High Court order prohibits publication at this stage of any details of those allegations.
However, while Jayden may be back with his father, the six-year custody battle appears far from resolved. On Tuesday, Jones was granted interim custody, and all supervised visits between Jayden and his mother were cancelled. Skelton has now engaged top criminal lawyer Barry Hart, and says she is committed to continuing with the custody fight.
Hart claims Jones is not a "knight in shining armour" and has threatened to divulge what he says is evidence to back that up.
Jones says suggestions he is an unfit parent are laughable.
"Why would I spend the time, energy and resources in trying to have a relationship with Jayden and then mistreat him in the way they are claiming? Does that make common sense to you?
"I would never treat a child the way Kay has led people to believe, let alone my own child. She [Skelton] just needs to pull her head in and think about Jayden for a change."
And Jayden, he says, couldn't be happier.
"I couldn't wish for better. Everyone has missed him so much. When Jayden saw his cousins he said 'did you guys miss me?', and they said 'yeah', and then he turned around and said 'oh, I missed you guys too'.
"They then asked if it was good to be back, and he said 'yeah, I'm pleased I'm back'."
One of the highlights of the week was when Jones put his son to bed for the first time again.
Normally, Jones says, reading a bedtime story to his son was "like doing the dishes, a bit of a chore".
"But this time reading a book to Jayden reminded me how much I enjoyed it. It made me realise how much I enjoyed reading my boy a story and tucking him in bed.
"After I tucked him in, Jayden said 'Goodnight Dad, I love you'."
Jones wasn't sure where his son had been hiding out for the past five months - and doesn't care.
"It's not my job to interrogate him and find out where he's been - it's not really that important. The important part is that I have got my boy back."
