My response to your second email

Received an email from you on Friday and wanted to print my response to it below, just in case you don't receive it. I sent it to you today.

Dear Kieran,

It is so good to hear from you! I miss and love you very much and am glad you let me know how you are doing.

I do have one favor to ask of you: Could you ask your mother to remove “Dingle Fritz” from the name she has assigned me on her email. “Dingle Fritz” is not a very nice word and inappropriate for an email between a son and his father. I hope it is not a word you use in school or with your friends or to refer to your mother. Okay?

You must have had only half a day of school today – I see your email was sent at 1:40 in the afternoon! I hope you enjoyed your time off of school!

Playing football and tag with your friends and classmates sounds like a lot of fun. What position do you usually play when playing football? When my friends and I played football in school, our punter always kicked the ball backward so that it went behind him! When I told my Uncle George this, he suggested that we have our punter stand backward so that the ball went the right way. So we tried that – except he actually kicked it correctly, which meant the ball still went the “wrong way”! After that, we just decided to always go for it on fourth down.

Anakin or a firefighter for Halloween – that would be a difficult choice! Whichever you decide, I know you’ll look good in it. Maybe you could send a picture of yourself in your costume – surprise me with which one you choose!

If you have to wait until spring to learn to ride a bicycle, that’s okay. By that time, we hopefully will be able to see each other, and I can help teach you how to ride the bicycle (Now I better go out and remember how to ride one myself – It’s been a long time I’ve been on a bike! Don’t worry, once you learn, it’s something you never forget.).

What are you doing this weekend? Have you gone to the Minnesota Zoo yet some weekend? I like the jungle part at the zoo.

A guinea pig sounds like lots of fun in the classroom! Whenever we used to visit pet stores together, you always liked to watch the guinea pigs. Do you get to help take care of the guinea pig? When I was in kindergarten, our classroom had a salamander. I always liked the way his home in the glass cage was decorated with lots of green plants and rocks. It looked like a miniature jungle!

Have you read any good books lately? I just read “Time Train” by Paul Fleischman. It’s about all of these different places where you can find dinosaur bones – like Utah and Pennsylvania – and shows what those places used to look like when dinosaurs lived there.

Well, that is all for now. I miss and love you very much!

Daddy

Here's what you wrote to me on Friday:

Dad:

I go to school all day. Like playing outside, sometimes we play football or tag.

For Halloween I'm going to go as Anakin from Clone Wars, or maybe a fire fighter, I haven't decided yet.

Not sure if I'll learn how to ride a bike right now, maybe in the Spring.

Lots of different things to do on weekends so they fly by.

We have a guiena pig at school. So that is really exciting.

Love,

Kieran

Decorating your new room

Went shopping this weekend with your grandma and purchased some items for our new house. I'm gettting excited about making the purchase and decorating the place the way I've always wanted my home to look; in the past, I either was just out of college and so had no money to outfit a home or I was living with someone else and had to compromise with their tastes - not that I ever disliked any of those mutual design decisions, but I always had to go with my second choice on everything.

I'm waiting to buy anything for your room, though - I want you to have a say in how you decorate it, such as the bedspread and posters and bathroom fixtures (yes, there's a half bath for you - sink, toilet, shower stall). We'll have lots of fun looking for stuff and decorating it.

Your nursery was a Classic Pooh and very cute. But it mainly was decorated to please your mother and me. I have a few of the items from the nursery and some pictures of it packed away. When we lived in the green house in Lancaster, your room had Star Wars decor and was red, white and blue. Jane and I were going to decorate your room at the Palmdale condo in football decor; she had picked out (and even purchased) this wonderful bedspread, lamp and other items, but we all know how that turned out.

Anyway, I'm thinking football again - except you had asked for an NFL helmet design. But I'm wide open to whatever you might like. And if you can;t decide, I may go with a surfer look! :)

Sports I participated in as a kid

Now that you're off to kindergarten, there are all kinds of little league and intramural sports you might be interested in participating in: soccer, basketball, flag football, softball, and who knows what else?

Living out in the country on the farm when growing up, I didn't take part in too many sports. I liked to play football and basketball during recess and in the backyard with my little brother. During sixth grade, we did have a basketball team at elementary school, but with it being our first year, we didn't win many games! Your grandpa helped coach the team.

In seventh grade, I participated in track and field during spring. I ran the 100 yard hurdles and did some pole vaulting. I think I did some broad jumping as well.

Then in eighth grade I was on the football team. I mainly played linebacker, though sometimes I was an offensive lineman (usually a guard or tackle) or a defensive lineman.

Once I got into high school, though, I didn't participate in sports, opting instead to joing the debate team. I did announce the high school's wrestling, basketball (both boys and girls), and track meets, though.

What kinds of sports do you like to play?

Your first football 'coach'

A couple of the neighbor boys were playing football outside with one another last night. It made me think of all the times we played football together. We didn't really keep score, just practiced skills, like tossing the ball to one another. As a father, I must tell you there's something quite relaxing about playing catch with your son inthe backyard.

Do you remember how I taught you to catch? You hold both hands out in front of you, and then when the ball arrives in them, you pull it into your chest. You got pretty good at it!

And then there were the tackling "drills," which I think you liked best. I would sit on my knees (atop a pillow if we were indoors), holding the ball in my hands, and with your shoulder you'd bash into me, wrapping both arms around my waist or chest, and knock me backward. Sometimes you'd wrap your arms around my neck, and I'd call you for a horse collar tackle penalty! You couldn't get enough of those tackling drills, and you always wore me out!

Other times you;d get to carry to ball and run at (or more smartly around) me, and I'd tried to catch you while still sitting their on my knees. You loved that, too.

I also taught you how to place kick a ball, which I held (as we didn't have a tee). And then I taught you take a handoff and to handoff the ball. Those weren't too exciting for you, though we always made it fun.

I wasn't trying to turn you into a football player (In fact, with your imagination and play acting skills, I figured you'd end up in theater or forensics as a high school student, and that's cool, too - I was in forensics and had a lot of friends in theater), but I figured every boy should know how to play football. My dad didn't have a lot of time to teach those skills to me, and I wanted to make sure you never were left out or at a disadvantage once you got to elementary school and the other boys wanted to play football.

Sure wish you were here right now to play some football. I think we could challenge those two neighbor kids to a game - and I'd bet we win!