Where Paranormal Romance Comes In Handy

So my son comes home from kindergarten the other day and tells me they read The Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly. "So I have to finish my vampire book," he informs me.

Ok.

Missing the segue, but wisely ignoring it, I nodded. He sat down with his handmade book--simple white pages stapled together--and proceeded to color a picture to match the words on page one.

"This vampir pushes down buildings."

I watched as he colored a picture of a vampire pushing over a skyscraper.

Next page.

He looks up expectantly.

"Oh!" I say. "I can tell you lots of things about vampires."

So, for each page, I give him a new tidbit. Vampires have fangs. Vampires can fly. Vampires turn into bats. And so on.

He writes the words--only looking to me to spell out loud the ones he does not know--then colors a picture to go with it.

A few pages into it, I spelled vampire out loud. He started to object, because he'd already written that word...then..."Awwww crap!" I look up to see him turning back to previous pages to correct his spelling. LOL

Then, arriving at a new blank page, he looks up. "Vampires cannot go out in the sun," I shared.

His face just fell. He started flipping madly back through his pages, looking at all of the pictures he'd drawn with a blue sky as background. He grabbed a black crayon and furiously turned those blue skies to black.

At this point, while I'm proud of his attention to detail and consistency, I'm this far from falling off the couch laughing my ass off. His expressions alone...

Especially at the end...when he pointed out that vampires eat people--which I had noticed was the title of his book (filled in at school). "Yup, they drink their blood," I confirmed. OMG, you should have seen his eyes. The rest of this exchange had me scurrying to assure him that vampires are of course NOT real.

And once that book was finished? He had me put together a new blank book. Then asked me what kind of book I wanted him to write for me. What is my favorite thing? So I told him, playing with you is my favorite thing.

He opens to page one. And begins writing..."Mom and G like to..." He looks up.

I jump in, "Ummm, play football. P. L. A. Y..."

I watch as he writes. Then I frown. "Why are you writing the letters so small? You can hardly see them."

With a look of sympathy at my apparent stupidity, he answers, "Cuz it's a book for you."

Smart guy. He knows I read about vampires--and am thus an expert--and that I read books with very, very small letters.

Sigh.