It was the last week of summer. Spymom believes all boys require copious outside time. Whining, Spy and Q were dragged into the yard. “Play,” I commanded. More whining ensued.

At last, I managed to get Q to play a game of catch with me. Spy, meanwhile, was poking around the yard.

Spy catches things. Bugs mostly. Toads and frogs sometimes. Once he spent a half hour chatting to a worm as the two of them played with the hose. This day, he caught something a little more… exciting.

The scene:

“I’ve caught something! Come see,” Spy yelled.

“Be nice,” I yelled back and tossed the ball to Q. Q rolled his eyes.

“OOW! It bit me!”

Okay? Now Spy had my attention. There was nothing in that front yard that he’s caught before that has teeth.

The victim:

Spy had snagged a vole. Which was now running quickly for cover. A key question ran through my mind: Are voles nocturnal?

Once upon a time, Spy’s aunt – age 8 – was bitten by a bat in broad daylight. It flew away. And she suffered through a series of very painful rabies shots because the animal could not be analyzed.

With this in mind, I grabbed the watering can and started smacking at the vole, shoving it back toward the driveway, preventing its escape. “Go grab some Tupperware. We need to trap the vole.” I yelled at Q. “What’s Tupperware?” he yelled back, running nonetheless for the kitchen. He knew what I wanted, however, and returned with a drinking glass.

While Q crouched, holding the poor rodent captive, I dragged a shell-shocked Spy to the kitchen sink.

Yes indeed, the vole’s teeth had broken skin.

Alcohol.

Neosporin.

Too many band-aids.

I called Spydad. How convenient to have a pathologist in the family just now.

I explained the situation. “The internet is still out, thank you Tropical Storm Irene. Can you check and see if voles carry rabies?”

The answer? “Theoretically. But probably not.”

Of course, probably is not a good enough answer for a mom.

“Let your ER know, we’re coming in. And we’re bringing the vole.”

I grabbed the recently abandoned hamster Habitrail from the dining room floor (more on that later) and went back outside to wide-eyed Q. Together, we stuffed the vole into the cage and slammed the lid. Into the trunk went the cage. Within minutes, Spy and Q were buckled up.

“Am I going to have to get shots?” Spy worried from the back seat.

“Maybe,” I replied, unwilling to spare his feelings. Sometimes a little deep emotion can help impress upon a kid the severity of the situation. Thus followed a lecture about touching wild animals (specifically mammals) and the rabies virus.

We arrived in the pathology department with this in tow:

Expectant and amused faces met us at every turn. Co-workers couldn’t help but burst into laughter to see their boss carrying the multi-colored cage followed by a parade of wide-eyed boys. Spy’s adventure was today’s excitement.

Turned out we didn’t need to go to the ER. The infectious disease doctor stopped in Spydad’s office to hand over a prescription for Augmentin. He was amused. And impressed that Spy had managed to snag a wild rodent. The concern for rabies was almost zero.

That’s one thing about scientist types. You’ll never get us to commit to anything 100%.

The lab techs found this both interesting and amusing. “Let’s send it in. We never get to do this.”

Out came the forms. “Uh Oh. It says we have to send the specimen in dead. And on ice.”

“Oh,” I replied, dragging a cold pack from the snack bag I’d hastily thrown together. “Here. Use this.” ER waits can be long.

“We have to kill it,” she repeated, not looking pleased with the idea.

“Not a problem,” I replied. “Six years of mouse research has me thoroughly qualified to do the job.” I was led to a hood where I gloved up and pulled the vole from the cage. The poor thing was nearly dead of fright already. This is one of the (many) reasons wild rodents cannot be made into pets. They will die of fright. Literally.

Moments later, the vole was packaged on ice and I was being given directions to the Department of Health. We didn’t warrant a courier.

I left Spy and Q playing video games under their dad’s desk and departed. Nobody even blinked at the Dept. of Health.

Over the next 24 hours, Spy worriedly inquired about the test results. He worried so much that we covered the basics of viral and bacterial disease and what was being done to keep him safe and healthy. As such, the nasty liquid antibiotic was consumed readily, treated by Spy like a magic elixir.

A day later, the results were in: the vole was rabies free. Spy jumped up with a cheer and did a happy dance.

Spymom has since noted the family hamster has been treated with more respect.

In a creative moment, Spy spun a story along with his drawing. You must be careful approaching our house now, especially if you’re a “bad guy”. There are multiple radioactive spiders guarding our house now. They will shoot poison into your wounds which will eat away at your blood until you begin to mutate horribly. Should you not possess a wound, they will bite and provide one for you.

Accordingly, a sign has been posted.

Spy and Q were drawing with chalk on the driveway. Each had his own plans. These plans conflicted with the other’s. Turf wars erupted and despite ongoing hostilities, nothing was solved that evening.

The next day, while Q was away, Spy resolved the issue by encroaching upon Q’s property. Spy then set up satellites to prevent Q from retaliating.

Careful, they’ll shoot your chalk helicopters right out of the sky.

Q gets much less page time here, mostly because he doesn’t get up to so much trouble. Er. Anymore.

Q is, however, a master Lego builder and occasionally astounds us in what he will build from the metric ton of exploded Lego scattered across their playroom floor (Spymom prefers not to go up there too often…).

‘How To Train Your Dragon’ arrived recently in our house. Spy has viewed the movie 7 times. Q complains. But after that seventh viewing (which Spy arranged because Spymom and Spydad hadn’t yet seen it), Q zipped up to the playroom and, from the random pieces of long-since demised Lego kits, produced this foot-long model of Toothless in less than half an hour.

All its parts are moveable.

“Mommy. Daddy. Come quick. There’s a really big, really ugly bug up here.”

Spy’s voice was remarkably calm as he called to us down the stairs. Yet there was definitely a hint of worry in his voice.

And this is a boy who loves bugs. Spy has a bug zoo/cage that he fills with his bare fingers as I, Spymom, try not to visibly cringe.

But this bug wouldn’t fit in that cage.

Because it was a brown bat.

Spydad’s voice carried far more concern when he went to investigate and announced a bat was flying around upstairs. I ran up the stairs with a broom in hand, ready to grab a towel. This wouldn’t have been the first bat I’ve caught.

But then it flew into the guest room and we followed, slamming the door behind us. With the broom, I checked to make certain it wasn’t hiding in the curtains, then threw open the window. We backed out, trusting the bat would find its way outside.

This morning? No bat.

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’:

“Mommy, am I random?” Spy asked me a week ago while climbing down the school bus stairs.

“Well, you can be.”

Huge, concerned eyes looked back up at me.

A few moments later the bus driver shared some unwelcome news. Seems a blue-green SUV had been sighted following both the elementary and middle school buses. At some point, the older male driver had approached some young teens and offered them a ‘ride home’.

Those smart kids went home and told their parents. The parents called the local police. A warning went out to all parents of school children. Gotta love the local police.

The man turned himself in a few days later when he caught word of the extreme upset he’d caused in our neighborhood. He’d truly just been offering the kids walking some distance a ride home. This somewhat elderly gentleman was informed that you just can’t do that in this day and age.

It turns out Spy had heard that this man was approaching ‘random’ children.

And Spy wanted to know if he was random.

As promised, Spy’s Chapter 4: The Evil Book

Literary Note: This chapter was composed by Spy in his bedroom when all other normal children would have been fast asleep.

Just looks like this book is going to cause trouble, doesn’t it?

*

‘The Evil Book’ appears in Spy’s room hovering over his bed…

Spy gasps as he begins to comprehend the book’s intentions.

*

Oh no! What’s happening?

The Evil Book begins to suck Spy out of his room and into its pages.

*

It’s horrible to be trapped in The Evil Book. Thunder and Lightening! Hail storms!

The other children who were sucked in have given up in despair.

But Spy has a plan (note that mischievous smile) and not all is lost.

*

Spy leaps from the book, aiming for his soft bed.

*

Safe at last in his room.

Or is he?

The Evil Book still hovers, threatening.

Bwahaha!

And we wonder why Spy has trouble going to sleep….

*

*

Spy and Q have both been writing stories inspired by a collection of ‘Haunted House Foam Stickers’. Q’s is a bit more involved and not yet ready for ‘publication’.

Spy, however, has 5 chapters in his. All done on his own, no help from spymom or Q. Since they are Halloween-themed, I bring you chapter 1.

A Haunted House

“I went to the Haunted House.” The house itself is modeled after a sticker, the rest of the drawings are all his. I love how he says ‘duh’ for ‘the’ and writes it as a ‘D’. Since its a new sight word in Kindergarten, I expect this spelling to soon fade.

*

“I went in the Haunted House.”

*

“I was in the Haunted House.”  Here he is standing at the end of a long hallway with a door all the way at the other end. I’m still dumbfounded that Spy has figured out how to draw perspective lines already.

*

“I went up the stairs.” This particular haunted house has a set of spiral stairs leading to the second story.

*

“I was on the top of the Haunted House.” Here you see the floor plan. Spy has just reached the top of the spiral staircase and it is there he sees the creepiest sight: Five words with at least one of the letters written backwards (Spy explained this was done on purpose). Mat, Hat, Bat, Cat and Dog.

*

Next up? Chapter 4: The Evil Book.

*

What with the approaching cold and flu season, every good spy knows that the best way to survive adverse conditions is to stay as physically fit and healthy as possible.

Spy took this to heart in yesterday’s health class where they discussed the importance of washing your hands:

Sure, the spirochete is fairly accurate and the coccus bacteria well-executed, but I was most impressed with his accurate rendition of a bacteriophage. I’m not sure if the other one on his finger is coming or going….  And I think the brown germ might be a rotavirus or the influenza virus itself. Opinions?

The annual flu vaccine for Spy is a nasal spray, but soon it will be time for that all important H1N1 vaccination and Spy did not do so well with shots at the last pediatric visit. But perhaps Kindergarten is too early to start training to resist evil, mad scientists?

*

*

Its the second half-day of Kindergarten. Spy was resigned to leaving early. After an enthusiastic greeting, he launched into a complaint.

“Mrs. C says I can’t draw scary things.”

Spymom prompt.

“I drew a scary monster. Then I crumpled it up into a ball and threw it away.” Waves of frustration from the back seat.

“Well”, I ask, “Did she ask you to draw something specific?”

“Yeah.” Long pause.  “We were supposed to draw something about ourselves….”

*

*

Its my sister-in-law’s birthday, so we asked the kids to dress up.

Spy had to ‘clean’ his nose. He snuck off to the playroom, but returned screaming and dripping blood down his nice, clean, yellow shirt and brown shorts. Grandma had noticed him slipping into the corner.

I applied first aid while Grandma followed the trail of blood on cleanup duty.

I asked Q to choose a new outfit. He came back with a red shirt. “Just in case.”

Good thinking, Q.

*

*

This summer while I went to a conference, my in-laws watched Spy and Q.

One night, the grandparents and a visiting aunt (who just so happens to teach Kindergarten) took the boys to Chuck E. Cheese.

Hands were stamped, Spy’s bright yellow shirt was noted. There’s a reason I dress him in bright colors.

Pizza. Games.

Wait. Where’s Spy?

Yes, Spy managed to loose three grown adults – adults who know his tendencies.

The lady at the door swore Spy hadn’t left. Staff started a search. Grandparents, Aunt and Q searched.  After 15 minutes, Spy was found hiding in a corner.

The big, giant mouse was scary. Spy had flipped into escape mode.

Spy had a bad dream. Bad enough that I ended up spending the night in his bed. As a rule, I only ask the boys about their dreams the next day… this one was interesting.

Here it is, to the best of my ability.

“We drove to grandma and grandpa’s house. And I jumped out to run across the yard. But I didn’t. There were snakes all over the yard. Robot snakes. With headlights. And they’d dug holes in the ground and the whole yard was glowing. Then they started to attack…”

Later, he drew this picture to illustrate:

That’s our blue car arriving at grandma and grandpa’s red house. The snakes came in rainbow colors. Now we know he dreams in color.