Drawings found in my backpack

Was cleaning out my backpack - the one I used to carry all of our stuff in when we went on weekend trips after we gave up the stroller - and found some neat things of ours tucked in an interior pocket, both from our time at Disneyland last winter.

First were two puppet bats that we could color when we visited Woody's ranch house. They were both ones I colored - a Captain Kirk and a Mr. Spock bat! The wings are the colors of their uniforms and have their rank braids on the tips.

Second was a color picture you'd drawn there of the three stars in our cowboy adventures - Sheriff Jack, Lone Ranger and Bad Bart. They're stick figures, but I notice you colored Bad Bart in a black clothing. The picture is dated Feb. 5, 2012 (I always dated your pictures!); that would have been the Sunday before Jane came out to visit the first time (You met her later that week at Barnes and Noble and we spent a couple of days in Santa Clarita).

I need to get a new printer/scanner as my old one doesn't allow me to scan pictures into my laptop (my laptop's operating system is too advanced!), but rest assured, I have the items in a tote for you to look at one day!

Recall your Scooby Doo haunted house?

One of your favorite toys to play with as a preschooler was a Scooby Doo haunted house playset. The doors opened on it, and to roam the hallways we could bring in the Scooby Doo action figures - yep, we had all five of them - on a scary adventure. Sometimes a hand would reach out from a trap door, and in another instance, the door would snap open, revealing a creepy clown.

We also had a game that was a cardboard Scooby Doo haunted house that was fun to play, but we'll do a different entry about that on another day.

The one bad thing about the haunted house playset was that it came apart easily but didn't go back together so well! We were pretty rough with our toys, so not surprisingly, it came apart often!

Among the accessories we had with the haunted house were: the five action figures of Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby; the mystery van; and a motorcycle Shaggy could drive. I also made some of the monsters/villains by printing them out and pasting them to blocks.

Some fatherly advice: Do not judge others

One day you may find yourself angry - at a bully on the playground, at a teacher who put you down, at a neighbor or relative who seems to treat you unfairly. I'd ask you to let go of your anger, for it only will serve to harm you.

"How can I 'let go' of my anger?" you're probably asking. I'm afraid there's no easy answer to that. You probably feel justified in your anger.

This justification is based in your beliefs about how people should behave, Kieran, and these "shoulds" lead you to judge. If you always remember not to judge others, you can maintain your beliefs but lose your anger.

If you insist upon judging others, though, then your will find your anger growing so that almost no one ever can live up to your values or expectations. As others will judge you (rightly or wrongly), should you judge them in return, you soon will find yourself at odds with them - and soon, you will find yourself at odds with everyone and everything.

No one is perfect, and the world is flawed. Yes, it could be improved, and we have a duty to make the world a better place to live. But we cannot hold others in low esteem for it. Indeed, doing soonly makes the world an even worse place.

Remember our old acoustic guitar?

Was listeneing to an old encore edition of "American Top 40" from my teen years and heard the old hard rocking guitar-heavy song "My Sharona" by The Knack. Rather than think about those awkward, clumsy teen years, your love of my guitar came to my mind.

I unfortunately don't have that acoustic guitar anymore; a string broke on it, and when forced to move back to the Midwest to fight for custody of you, I had to leave a lot beyond. With a broken string on it, I decided a better guitar awaited me in the future (It was just a cheap Adam Levine acoustic guitar bought at Target - very pretty looking, a good guitar to learn on, but not one to play at a concert!).

You always liked to strum it and make up songs, pretending to be one of the Beatles! I bought you a play guitar that was more your size at a festival near San Diego during summer 2011, but alas, its string broke, too, as it was more of a toy than anything.

When we get together again and I settle into my place, I'll have to pick us up each an acoustic guitar to play. Though I know some very basic chords, I'm not much of a guitar player, never having made the time to learn it all too well. Maybe we'll have to figure it all out together. Sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon (or even a few of them!)!

A poem about penguins for you

Read a poem today and instantly thought of you - it was Pablo Neruda's "Magellanic Penguin." Usually Neruda writes passionate love poetry (I can't wait to see what you think of it when you're older - much older, BTW!), so his penguin poem isn't particularly well known.

The reason it reminded me of you, of course, is because you really loved penguins after you turned five or so. I bought you toy figure penguins and a penguin stuffie; in fact, I think we even went to the Aquarium of the Pacific once just because I knew they'd have penguin stuffies there (Or did we get a stuffie seal pup there? I can't remember.). There also was a pegnuin video from the library that you really liked; one of the penguins was called Ringo, I think.

Anyway, here's the penguin poem:

Magellanic Penguin

Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but verticle
and a questioning innocence
dressed in night and snow:
The mother smiles at the sailor,
the fisherman at the astronaunt,
but the child child does not smile
when he looks at the bird child,
and from the disorderly ocean
the immaculate passenger
emerges in snowy mourning.

I was without doubt the child bird
there in the cold archipelagoes
when it looked at me with its eyes,
with its ancient ocean eyes:
it had neither arms nor wings
but hard little oars
on its sides:
it was as old as the salt;
the age of moving water,
and it looked at me from its age:
since then I know I do not exist;
I am a worm in the sand.

the reasons for my respect
remained in the sand:
the religious bird
did not need to fly,
did not need to sing,
and through its form was visible
its wild soul bled salt:
as if a vein from the bitter sea
had been broken.

Penguin, static traveler,
deliberate priest of the cold,
I salute your vertical salt
and envy your plumed pride.

- Pablo Neruda

Recall reading 'Slide and Find Trucks'?

Am unpacking and repacking a number of your childhood books and belongings as I settle into my new place, and came across what had to be your favorite book as a 2 year old: "Slide and Find Trucks."

It was a great book in which I could ask you questions like "Which truck is red?" and then you'd look on the next page and choose among one of the four colors and slide a piece of cardboard to see if you'd selected the right truck! On another page, you had to decide which closeup of a truck was a cement mixer, car transporter, etc.; on another page you got to select the truck's name, and then finally decide which driver drove which truck.

You loved the book, and it was a wonderful way to teach you basic colors, letters, and other cognitive skills. Sometimes I had to help you pull the slider as they were a little stiff for such small hands to (Trust me, we moved those sliders so many times that none of them are stiff now!).

Eventually you memorized all of the answers, and you be the little jokester that you were deliberately picked the wrong answer! I always played along with you or would pretend to be all exasperated at your wrong answer, causing you to laugh to no end!

Thinking about our parents' lives before we were born

Your picture on the cover of my hiking books (All of which are dedicated to you.) and your name as my son continues to appear all over the place. This time, the cover for my first book is in my college's English Department newsletter. I attended UW-River Falls from 1984-89, graduating with a bachelors degree in education, double major in English and Journalism. At UWRF, I was the campus newspaper editor, the literary magazine editor, the Winter Carnival King, and was a national qualifier on the forensics (intercollegiate speaking) team. They were very happy days indeed - but never so happy as the days I spent with you.

For most children, thinking about their parents' life before them is both odd and fascinating. It's difficult to imagine your parents without you as part of their lives. But just as you are growing up now without children, learning how to be an adult, so your parents also had to grow up and learn what making your own way through the world involves.

I look forward to seeing what you will enjoy doing and will excel at when in high school and college. There will be much experimentation with different activities and interestest as you try to determine what you like and don't like, but ultimately you'll settle on some path that brings great joy and meaning to your life. Then you'll settle down with a beautiful woman or man and raise children of your own. And they'll then wonder with fascination about the life you once led before they were born!