Your picture is on another online article!

My article “Hiking with Kids – Avoiding Common Summer Injuries” appears in the latest edition of Seattle Backpackers Magazine - and pictures of you from hikes we've taken together appear with it!

The article examines how to avoid and treat sunburn, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Seattle Backpackers Magazine is an online magazine focusing on backpacking, hiking, climbing and camping.

The top picture is of you enjoying water during a rest break we took before entering Nightmare Gulch at Red Rocks State Park north of Mojave, Calif.

The next photo down is of you at the southern edge of the Mojave Nature Preserve in Southern California, just off the I-40. I believe the Providence Mountains are in the background. It was taken in March 2011.

The bottom photo is of you playing with my trekking pole on Ritter Ranch Preserve near Acton, Calif. You're standing on rock that's half a billion years old!

There are photo albums of all of these hikes/travels on my Facbeook site.

I can't wait to go hiking with you again - there are some great trails in northwestern Wisconsin for us to hike!

Remember our Batman shows, action figures and books?

Alfred Pennyworth,
Batman's butler.

Remember when we used to watch Batman on TV and DVD? There was a nightly Batman cartoon on cablem and we'd sometimes watch "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" on DVDs. We sometimes also watched "Justice League." The series were great introductions to all kinds of comic book superheroes from Plastic Man and the Green Lantern to Aqua Man and the Green Arrow.

We used to collect all of the action figures from these comic books series. You had a great Batcave playset that we often used as part of the set when we played with our Star Wars action figures.

We also had a bunch of Batman and other superhero books that we'd read before bedtime. One was about how a young boy name Bruce Wayne overcame his fear of the dark; you really seemed to be inspired by that one.

I was able to save some of your favorite superhero toys from those days. Wish I could have saved more. When you're allowed to see me again again, I will have to get you a new Batcave with superheroes for it.

The picture is a cartoon cutout of Alfred Pennyworth from the Batman cartoon series we watched. Since we couldn't purchase Batman's butler as an action figure, we printed this on the computer and pasted it to a block!

I always was so glad that you liked Batman. He definitely was my favorite superhero when I was that age.

Got new glasses this weekend

Got a new pair of glasses this weekend so I might look a little different the next time you see me. You might recall that I also shaved off my goatee just before we were forced apart. So I suppose the look of the dad you remember probably will be a lot different when we next see one another! I know that you'll look much different, too, as you're growing up so fast. Missing out on watching you grow kills me every day, Kieran, but I know no matter what either one of us looks like, we will still have fun together, and no matter how many years we're apart, we'll still have that bond we forged in those first minutes after you were born.

I wonder if one day you'll have to wear glasses. I've worn them them since fifth or sixth grade - well, actually I was supposed to wear them since fifth or sixth grade but didn't take it seriously and only started wearing them regularly when I began ninth grade. They were uncomfortable to wear, and I thought I'd be picked on for wearing them. My school work in junior high in part suffered for it, though, and I decided I needed to quickly remedy that.

During college, I did wear contacts for a couple of years, so some of my pictures from that era will show me eyeglass-less or in sunglasses. But thanks in part to mild allergies I often get dry eyes, so that wasn't very conducive to wearing contacts, and I went back to glasses.

I won't moralize by telling you to wear your glasses should you need to get them (Though I guess I just did!). Every one has to make their own choices - and I know you're smart enough to make the right one.

What you wanted to be when you were little

You always loved to play dress up and roll play as a preschooler. You also always were changing what you wanted to be when you grew up - which is not unusual for little kids!

I myself wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. But I was a kid during the late 1960s and early 1970s when moon launches were the norm. Then like so many other in our family, I had to start wearing glasses somewhere around fifth or sixth grade - unfortunately, at the time you couldn't be a pilot (or an astronaut) if you wore glasses, so I passed on the dream and went on to become a writer/editor (which I enjoy quite a lot, by the way).

Here are some of the things you said you wanted to be when you grew up:
g Doctor
g Fireman
g Policeman
g Jedi knight
g Football player
g Guitar player
g Drummer
g Navy sailor
g Army soldier

I wonder what you want to be now?

Musical instruments you had as a toddler

Do you remember all of the neat musical isntruments you had as toys? The drum was your favorite. You also had a flute (actually it was a recorder) that you liked to play as well. Sometimes you'd take them in the car (the recorder in particular) and play them to the Beatles DVD we listed to. There also was a harmonica and a whistle, if I recall correctly.

My guitar was your favorite, though. You always were fascinated by the different strumming sounds it made and would hold that big acoustic instrument in your lap and create your own songs off the top of your head. Sometimes you'd line up the stuffies and give them instruments to play and pretend you were a rock band. You'd even have me sit and listen to some of your numbers! Sometimes I'd "join you on stage" for a song or two.

You also had a play guitar I bought at a festival near San Diego, but it was cheaper than it looked, and the strings all broke. When playing it, you'd make up Beatles songs and have me guess who was singing them - John, Paul, George or Ringo - and then play a whole album full of songs for me. Some of the songs were quite clever in their wording. I should have written down some of the words.

I wouldn't be surprised if one day you take up a musical instrument of your own. I suspect you'd be quite good at playing it, too! You'll be one heck of a songwriter, that's for sure.

Summer fun: the Weekly Reader

One of my favorite things to receive in the mail when I was a little boy like you was the summer Weekly Reader. I don't know if they still have Weekly Reader, but if they don't, they should!

The Weekly Reader usually was just four to six pages of fun articles and games for kids to read and play. The articles were about interesting places, animals or people. We got them every week in school.

In the summer, they came every couple of weeks. A new issue could keep me busy for a couple of hours - so my mom was happy to subscribe to them for me!

I was able to find a few copies online of the Weekly Readers that I got in the mail. I included a picture of one here. Doesn't it look like fun? Maybe you can make a copy of it, print it out, and have your very own Weekly Reader page.

What kinds of things do you like to read?

Your height and weight through the years

In a previous entry, I mentioned that I kept track of all kinds of stuff about you as you were gorwing up: first words, favorite songs, TV shows you liked, and so on. Of course, I also kept track of how much you weighed and how tall you were, too!

Here's a list of those measurements that I stumbled across as going through my computer files. It's a little incomplete because I have your height listed on a wall poster (which is packed away somewhere):

2007
Feb. 23 – Weighs 7 pounds, 7 ounces

2008
Feb. 5 – Weighs 20 lb., 14 oz.
June 5 – Weighs 23 lb., 6 oz.

2011
Jan 26 – Measures 3 feet, 10 inches tall

2012
Jan 10 – Weighs 41 pounds
Jan 21 – Measures 3 feet, 11.25 inches tall
Apr 21 – Height is hair under 4 feet

How much do you weigh and how tall are you today?