It took one and a half hours to cross the border back into the United States. People were wandering about, chatting and walking to the Duty Free store as cars crept one car length at a time towards the border.

When at last we arrived, we’d all but finished answering the officer’s questions when Spy struck up a conversation with said officer through his window and made his own declaration. Part of it went like this:

“We have bears. But we didn’t buy them in Canada. We got them at the Teddy Bear Factory. My bear’s name is Cupcake because he’s courageous.”

Spydad and Spymom drove away snorting. Isn’t courageous the first thing that comes to mind when you see a white cupcake with pink frosting?

Then again, Spymom had promised to sew Cupcake a rainbow superhero cape when we returned home.

Here’s Cupcake wearing his Colorful Courageous Cape:

The beginning of this year’s family vacation was all about factory tours in Vermont.

Stop 1: The Granite Factory

Rock of Ages

Spy and Q sandblasted their very own granite samples (a puppy and a wolf respectively). Then, we toured the enormous granite factory. You’re seeing about half the place here. It was very loud. What were they working on? Mostly gravestones.

Stop 2: Ben and Jerry’s

That’s right, we waited for 1.5 hours to take a 10 minute tour. Sigh.  Spymom and Spydad knew there was no getting out of this one. Pictures? Sorry. We weren’t allowed.

BUT Spy did run up to this booth and ask a question.

Spymom envisioned the encounter going something like this:

Spy: “Can I ask a question?”

B&J Guy: “Sure, kid. That’ll be $2.75.”

Stop 3: The Chocolate Factory

Lake Champlain Chocolates

Spy and Q paid rapt attention. Particularly when they were handing out free samples.

This is the ‘Enrober’.

Which begs the question, can you disrobe chocolate? If so, there was a lot of disrobing going on in the factory store and outside in the parking lot…

Stop 4: The Teddy Bear Factory

Vermont Teddy Bear Company

By the time we reached this building, I was in complete sympathy with this bear:

But this place cracked me up. The tour was amazing, even if we could barely bear the bear puns.

We met Franken Bear who kindly demonstrated the inner workings of a Teddy Bear.

Unfortunately, they did not sell this bear in the gift shop.

Sigh.

How perfect he would have been for a certain Halloween party…

Spy asked the tour lady a question, “Did the stuffing machine ever go crazy and shoot stuffing all over the place and…”

“Why, yes!” she replied, and lifted a giant, over-sized stuffed bear arm from a pile of fluff. “This is an example of what can go wrong. We place them in this bin (of stuffing) to give them time to shrink back down to size.”

Spy grew quiet, considering whether to believe her or not.

*Snort* Spy obviously hadn’t been the first to ask.

And then there was the bear in the hospital. Aside from his ankle, he was suffering from low blood sugar. Hence the honey drip.

Stop 5: The Beer Factory

Magic Hat Brewing Company

The coolest of them all in terms of machinery. The Licker Sticker malfunctioned while we were there, and Spy and Q were thrilled to watch them get everything running again.

And even better? The free samples at the end. By this time, we’d had it. Even Spy was ready for a refreshing drink. He kept the bartender hopping. ***

*** A lady witnessed this moment and I heard her gasp, “That kid, is he really…”

“Water,” Spymom replied. “It’s just water.”

Recently, we were in NYC and stumbled upon a street fair, Spy and Q’s first. It was early – not crowed and comfortably shaded – and so we began to wander down the street. Much attracted the boys’ interest, mostly as curiosities, not as anything they hoped to own.

Then Spy’s attention focused with laser-like intensity on one particular stand. They were selling real, formerly live, still glowing-in-the-dark, moon sea jellyfish embedded in glass. Month five of Spy’s deep sea creature obsession.

They were cool, no mistaking that, and Spymom and Spydad made a half-hearted promise to stop on the way back, perhaps to purchase.

Oops.

Time passed, streets were crossed and stands were examined. Then Spy stopped mid-street staring toward Central Park (still several blocks away). “It’s going to take forever!” he declared.

“Oh, Spy, we’re not going to walk all the way to the end,” I reassured him, thinking his feet might be tiring or that he grew bored as the stands began to repeat their displays.

He looked up at me with sad, distressed eyes. “But we’re already FOUR blocks away! It’s going to take forever to get back.”

Spy had been counting the number of streets we’d crossed since the jellyfish stand.

Yes, we now own our very own glow-in-the-dark ***, real, formerly-live, moon sea jellyfish. Spy carefully selected one, then ascertained that a parent was indeed carrying his precious find after every sit-down stop in NYC that day. It now rests in a place of honor for all to admire.

*** Technically it fluoresces under UV light – it’s a GFP-expressing jellyfish. Those scientists who first developed the use of Green Fluorescent Protein in biological research won a Nobel prize. And Spymom spent several years making use of GFP herself and so was easily swayed to argue on Spy’s behalf.

Spy has been on a ‘deep sea creatures’ kick this spring. We’ve read about them, watched documentaries, visited aquariums. I keep waiting for his interest to fade, but here we are at three months and it’s still going strong. So when it came time to plan his birthday party, it was no surprise when he chose ‘Deep Sea Creatures’ as his theme.

I received instructions:

• We needed blue and green streamers to simulate sea weed and water.
• Sea creature coloring pages were printed from the internet, colored, cut out and hung behind the ‘giant kelp’.
• Of the four helium balloons ultimately selected, one was purple and one was blue. The purple one had to be positioned below the blue one to illustrate how the level of light decreased in the sea as you go deeper.
• A jellyfish movie was played on the room’s computer in a loop. (Originally, Spy intended to have the other kids sit and watch some of these documentaries so they could discuss them. Spymom convinced him that might be a bit much.)
• And, when asked what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday party this year, he answered, “A squid cake. A colossal squid cake.”

Now, for those of you who haven’t been dragged through 20+ documentaries on deep sea creatures, Spy would like you to be aware that there is a HUGE difference between the giant squid and the colossal squid. The most key instruction I received was that the suckers had to be made from chocolate chips – NOT cheerios. This is because colossal squids have rotating hooks instead of the classic suction suckers found on other squid, a fact he finds fascinating.

(If you’re interested, view this documentary about 3-4 times like we did.)

And it was a good thing I consulted Spy on the eyeball placement. I almost messed up and placed them too far on the end of the cake.

And now, for the image you’ve been waiting for:

Spy and I stopped by the library to pick up some books. One book I had ordered (to learn how to read maps) caught his fancy. He latched onto it as soon as the librarian checked it out, had to be marched to the car with the book open and quickly buckled up to study this book. At home, Spy barely made it in the door before sinking to the kitchen floor with his book.

Fifteen minutes later, I found him like this:

So, I highly recommend this book for teaching map reading skills:

The Once Upon A Time Map Book

Spy is looking forward to today’s ‘geography’ lesson.

Spy and Q were overheard a few days ago discussing the ‘dirty’ state of the family cat. Darwin has been spending much time on the screen porch monitoring chipmunks, squirrels and birds. In the process, he has become coated with pollen, dust and spider webs.

Conversation turned to the idea that perhaps they should “clean up” the cat by means of a bath.

Spymom is of a mind to lean back and watch that attempt.

We do, after all, have plenty of band aids and Neosporin.

Spy was given one in an attempt to ease his cough.

Not wanting to deal with a flood, we admonished him, “Do NOT touch the controls.”

We’d aimed the vents at his bed, the better to help him breathe. All was well the first night. But the second, spymom set the controls on high to start… but forgot to turn them back down.

Later that night, ’round about 10pm, we arrived to find this:

For once, Spy did not disobey. But his sheets were getting wet and so he solved the problem… with tissues.

Spy sat at the kitchen island yesterday with a glass of ice water in his hand. He’d been gulping down water all day, the first nice day of spring.

He glanced up at the high ceiling and commented, “Should be raining in here soon.”

“What?” I turn to look at him. He grins.

“I’ve been so thirsty all day. I must be evaporating. Clouds will be forming soon.”

And therefore, it would be raining in the kitchen.

He’d just finished watching Bill Nye the Science Guy: Water Cycle.

Yesterday, we took Spy and Q to see The Flying Karamazov Brothers in NYC.

Given the show’s name was 4Play, Spydad and Spymom previewed this YouTube video and a couple of reviews just to be certain it was kid friendly.

It was. Extremely.

Take a moment and go catch glimpse of these four men in kilts. I’ll wait.

It’s worth your time. Promise.

We had second row seats in a small theater down near NYU. Fortunately for Spy (and for whomever was supposed to sit there), the two seats in front of him were empty.

The show opened as the Brothers Karamozov (Pavel, Alexei, Zossima and Nikita) rhythmically drummed upon and then rhythmically destroyed a number of cardboard boxes. Spy was bouncing in his seat, laughing. As they walked from the stage, one wearing his box over his head, Spy turned to us with glee in his eyes. It was his kind of show.

Particularly since the performers encourage audience participation.

Spy doesn’t need much encouragement. He participated. Repeatedly.

E.g. #1:

As one brother juggles raw eggs a mere four feet away, Spy yells, “Throw it on the floor!”

“Not my job, kid,” Zossima replies, not missing a beat.

The crowd cracked up.

E.g. #2

Pavel is lining up items of ‘extreme danger’ to be juggled for the finale. He holds up a torch and announces, “Item number…”

And in this pause for effect Spy yells, “TWO!”

“No, kid! Number FIVE,” Pavel says, walking away, rolling his eyes.

E.g. #3

This was Q’s moment. The brothers ask to juggle improv items from the audience. Q tosses up his mohawk hat to join 9 other items. It’s not chosen. Instead, the brothers fling it back and forth wearing it as a crown, banging the stage with a hockey stick (another improv item) as they take turns playing Roman emperor.

What items were juggled? An apple pie, a stuffed cloth chicken and the hockey stick.

E.g. #4

At one point, Spy is so excited, and getting so loud and so far out of his seat, that Spydad clamps his hand over Spy’s mouth and tries to haul him back into his chair (and off the kind lady to his right). The Brothers catch this and, in the middle of improv, all move as one to mock Spydad.

Three of them suddenly point to the lights, hopping up and down on stage and yelling.

One brother clamps his hand over another’s mouth, dragging him backward across the stage.

Nikita stopped hopping to look at Spydad, “Glad to see censorship is alive and well in America, dad.”

E.g. #5

We, the audience, were warned that the next part was improv juggling and that pins would be dropped. If, we were instructed, they landed in the audience, we were to leave them where they lay. The Brothers, tossed, spun around and did all kinds of impressive tricks. And, yes, a few were dropped. One pin skittered off the stage and landed on the floor in the front row. The Brothers then began to argue with each other, insisting that they should get the pin back. An eleven year old boy in the front row near Spy was exhorted to return the pin. That kid refused to move.

Spy, in complete affinity with the Brothers, drops to the floor and, before Spydad could catch him, army crawls under the chair in front of him, retrieves the pin and pops up with it, waving it in the air.

“Oh, there it is! The chatty kid in the second row’s got it.”

“Oh, good.”

“Throw it here kid!”

With no hesitation, Spy wings it back on stage.

“Thanks!” they all yell.

Spy is bouncing with glee.

Spymom and Spydad are relieved no one was injured.

At the end of the show, the people behind us tell us how much fun it was to have Spy in front of them, and the lady who sat next to Spy waves an amused goodbye. Spy is still bouncing with excitement after 90 minutes of juggling and improv comedy.

On the way out, we meet one of the brothers at the door as they said goodbye to their audience.

“He was the one in second row?” Alexei Karamazov asks.

I nod.

Smiling down at Spy, Alexei says, “He was great. We loved him.”

Gleeful, Spy hops over to meet the other brothers where Spydad announces, “It’s Q and Spymom’s birthday today.”

One of the brothers yanks Q’s hat from his hand, pops it back on his head and begins to sing. And so our theater experience ended with a three-part “Happy Birthday” serenade.

We’d laughed so hard for 90 minutes our faces hurt.

And mine too, really. This here is dedication to cleaning out your home.

(Click the link below. Anyone who knows how to embed their own video (not YouTube) contact me!)

IMG_0881-1

(No, that’s not us talking in the background. It’s a fish, not a snake.)

On the whole, Spy and Q loved Mystic Aquarium.

About a month ago, we sat down with Spy and Q and developed a work chart for allowance. One ‘task’ for Spy was: stay in your bed and go to sleep. Spymom forks over $0.25 per night. Completing homework & piano practice without whining is worth $0.10 each. But the biggest money maker? Wash the dog = $0.50.

One day not too long after the chart was taped to the fridge (It’s stainless and non-magnetic. Poor Spy at age 4 upon move-in sadly stood in front of it trying to get his magnetic letters to stick only to watch them slide to the ground. But I digress…) Spy heard spymom comment to spydad, “The dog really stinks. What has she been rolling in?” It was a busy morning, 15 minutes until bus time. Spy, who was ready to go, coaxed the dog up the stairs and into his bathroom. Spy and Nira play often in the morning, so I thought nothing of it.

10 minutes later, the dog returns with white stuff on her back. Spy proudly proclaims, “I washed the dog!”

Well, he tried. It’s just that toothpaste on a hairbrush doesn’t work all that well.

Spy has a theory.

“The tooth fairy has an invisible magic camera under the pillow of every kid. If you try to touch it, you can’t feel it and your hand goes right through it. She watches the inside of every kid’s mouth on a bunch of screens that show under the pillow. She sits somewhere and watches the screens to see when a tooth is there. She’s invisible and has a lot of power. She can disappear from one state and just appear in another state.”

Spy crawled into our bed this morning and started telling us about the kids that sit at his table in school – two girls and a boy. As he talked about the boy, he started to laugh.

“The teacher keeps calling him Harry.” Snort. “I don’t think that’s his original name.” More laughter.

Spy figures no one would voluntarily name their kid “Hairy” and (after two weeks) Spy is still trying to figure out  this boy’s “real” name.

Whaddayado when your Spy gets bored?

Tie Dye.

Spy and Q started with a package of five T-shirts each, some of which are here:

Then they moved on to packages of socks:

While Spymom tie-dyed their pillowcases and sheets:

We were having so much fun, that we even tie-dyed Spy’s two white long-sleeved T-shirts. His favorite? The “Rainbow Shirt“, of course.

For the past two weeks, Spy and Q have worn little else but these shirts. Then Spy came down yesterday morning in something else.

“No tie dye shirt today?” I’d just washed all of them so I knew the drawer was full.

“I’m saving them for school. One for each day.”

And this is good for the teacher, you see, because when Spy sneaks off, he’ll be all that easier to locate.

There’s a reason I encourage Spy’s penchant for bright colors.

While Q continued to refine the original robot, Spy boldly pressed forward to create:

Still not walking, this robot has two new features. As before, two servos allow the arms to move up and down – these arms come with flashlight and propeller capabilities (complete the circuit, and the propeller spins as the arm goes up and down). Spygrandpa pulled out more servos for Spy and Q to improve their robots, but Q was too slow or too busy with other projects. Spy grabbed the extra two.

With the addition of a third servo, Soda Bottle Robot can now turn his head (all the better for the red LED eyes to see you, my dear).

(Why yes, that is my old ear bud holder.)

(Flashlight and propeller on above.)

And the fourth servo enabled Spy’s robot to wag his tail. You know, “so you can tell if he’s happy with you or not”.

Did I not warn you all last year that remote control cars were just the beginning? Mark my words, next year there will be wheels.

Today, while walking down a windy corridor.

Spy: “Have you noticed there’s air all around us?”

Spydad: “Good thing. Or we’d be surrounded by water or embedded in rock.”

Spy: “The air is even inside my lungs.”

Spy: “My blood is just too hot to cool down.”

The cat ran by this morning, his ears flat, his belly close to the floor.

Spy bounded proudly behind him. “I’m teaching Darwin how to walk like a gentleman.”  (Darwin is our gray and white morning coat kitty.) Spy began to imitate Darwin’s steps. “But he rather walks like a zombie.”

Spy just informed us that there is “no such thing as zombies, walking skeletons and vampires.”

Yes, Spymom and Spydad agree.

But Spy wasn’t done quite yet.

“Because the big fireball came down and exploded and killed all the dinosaurs and vampires.”

Huh?

Well, apparently this big fireball was like a giant burning sun that did in all the vampires. Along with the dinosaurs.

Spy loves rainbows. At age 3 he had the correct order of the colors memorized.

Let him create art and it often comes out in rainbow form. (Tho’ he gave up on indigo after finding Crayola leaves that one out and just gives you purple. He’s adapted.):

This past year in Kindergarten, they studied poetry. Again, rainbows figured prominently. His teacher had to extend the paper because there was no way Spy was going to leave out any of the colors.

But this is my favorite poem.

Spy is on the rainbow. First he speaks to the rainbow, then the rainbow answers.

‘Oh, Rainbow’

“Rainbow why are you down low and I’m so high?”

“I don’t know. You’re so high and I’m so low.”

This past February, Spy came home with these shoes:

“We studied Jackson Pollock in art today,” said Spy. The art teacher had them throwing paint on the floor and Spy had “The Best Time Ever” in art class.

We took Spy and Q to New York City during winter break. One of our stops was at the MOMA to see the Tim Burton exhibit (This exhibit fascinated Spy to no end – one particular image really caught his attention: a toilet at the end of the hall that had teeth.)

After the Burton exhibit, we took Spy up the escalator to view a real Jackson Pollock. He wasn’t very impressed. After the Burton art, I had to agree with him. But he did make an impression the guard. Spy ran headlong in the gallery and dove for the cushioned bench in the middle of the room. The guard hopped to attention and – for just a moment – I though he just might jump on top of Spy to protect the art.

We dragged him from the room after that, thoughts of headline news running through Spydad and Spymom’s heads.

School’s wrapping up now, and we’re getting all kinds of artwork sent home.

Here’s Spy’s rendition of ‘Jackson Pollock, Untitled’:

Said Spy, “Xrays are for seeing what you weren’t supposed to snort or swallow.”

Apparently there was an extensive discussion in Kindergarten today. One of Spy’s classmate’s swallowed a penny (so Spy says) and was taken for an Xray.

I love making birthday cakes – cakes in general – with Spy and Q. Today’s mixes make them incredibly easy as do all those pre-filled frosting tubes. They get so excited ‘popping’ the eggs, mixing in the oil and water – and finally – the chocolate powder. Yes. 99% of the time it’s chocolate around here. Once we made a marbled cake. And once a vanilla.

All in all, our cakes are less than professional, but we do have fun making them.

At age three, Q engineered this cake for Spydad:

Radar went down that day. When I wasn’t looking, all the planes crashed.

Q’s next cake was one we made for Halloween. A ‘just because’ cake.

This year all the kindergarteners brought home signed statements of their New Year’s Resolution.

And since Spy has a thing for the ‘hot lava’ cakes (you saw that coming, didn’t you?), this was the first cake he made all by himself. He did everything on his own under my instruction (except remove the hot pan from the oven at the very end).

Q is Lego obsessed. Has been for a good two years.

This year Q and Spydad built this Lego cake (key ingredient: marshmallows).

And just this past week, Spy had his birthday cake. I was even given explicit directions:

But since the cake wasn’t quite large enough to accommodate the entire diagram, we settled for portion of his plans. Ever seen a car race threatened by hot lava?

When no one is available for a round of Uno, who pitches in?

Spy has a herd of Webkinz for just that purpose. (Note the scarves and blankets. It’s cold today.)

And yes, Spy cheats at every opportunity. Could be that’s why only Shadow, Dust and Twilight (the horses) will play with him?

Twice a week Spy brings home a packet from school containing a word ring (sight words) and a book at his reading level to read with spymom and spydad.

For a while, the reading level was fairly consistent. Then there was a dramatic swing to the easy side when a book featuring adorable baby animals arrived in his backpack.

Spydad and spymom’s eyebrows went up. Had Spy been demoted?

And just last night, there was a book a bit beyond his current abilities called The Bravest Cat! featuring a true story about a mother cat named Scarlett who rescued her kittens from a burning building.

So we asked.

Turns out Spy isn’t happy with the books his teacher has been assigning him. When Mrs. C turns her back, he swaps out his reading material for a book that he wants to read.

So what kind of houses would Spy and Q build? Ones true to their natures.

Q, our engineering expert, designed his to appear ‘under construction’. Careful, there’s a barrier across the front sidewalk. And mind the orange gumdrop cones – those pretzel sticks are holding up the side of the house.

Spy set up a booby trap. If you follow the sidewalk under the entryway, you’ll trigger it. A red gum drop dumbbell will fall on your head and – see that orange candy sticking out of the red wreath? – the orange laser will blast you to bits before you reach the front door.

Who knew gingerbread houses could be so dangerous?

T’was the seventh night of Hannukah, and all through the house
A creature was stirring, but it wasn’t a mouse.

The children weren’t nestled all snug in their beds,
Because visions of chocolate gelt danced through Spy’s head.

Then from the dining room we heard a faint patter,
The sound of little feet, tinfoil, and a clatter.

We rounded the corner, but no Spy was there,
The room was empty – deserted and bare.

But there in the corner, behind a door in the dark,
An empty glass and gold foil – Spy’d  been on a lark.

We looked at each other, spydad scratching his head,
When we heard the sound of feet heading back up to bed.

As Spy ran the stairs, chocolate dribbling from his chin,
He turned back to us, laughing with a big Cheshire grin.

So Spy wrote it.

He turned his back on his teacher after she made a request. Put pencil to paper. Then turned back around and held up his work.

Capital N. Capital O. Exclamation mark.

His teacher told us she had to turn away and cover her mouth she was laughing so hard.

We came around the corner and there was an owl, snoozing away on his branch.

“An Owl,” says Spy, hopping up on the nearby fence. “They’re nocturnal.”

Then Spy proceeds to let out the most bloodcurdling high-pitched scream I’ve yet heard. Think crystal shattering.

The owl’s eyes fly open and his head rotates, glaring directly at Spy.

“Cool!” Spy says, then hops down and zooms off to the next enclosure.

Good thing there was that cage.

**

*

Spy obtained a ‘Disco Light Ball’ yesterday.

This is what we found last night on the floor of his room in the dark:

Two lines of little people stood in the center of Main Street staring up at the disco ball as it spun on his desk.

So of course, we asked.

“The people are being hypnotized by the light so they won’t see the bank robbers break out of jail.”