Recall playing Hungry Hungry Hippos?

One of the games you most enjoyed playing as a preschooler with me was Hungry Hungry Hippos. I'm certain you remember it: Players could shoot out a marble (or more) and then had to try to capture it by "eating" it with a hippo.

You always like to change which color hippo you played with each round. I never put the stickers on the gameboard as the picture at right shows, but otherwise it's exactly what our game looked like.

I always loved playing games with you - not only were you good at them so I didn't have to worry about "throwing" them to give you a handicap (You'll understand the need to do this when you're a daddy.) - but I didn't really have many games to play when I was growing up, especially when your age. I had no siblings until I was 4-1/2, so he wasn't old enough to play games until I was in third grade or so. My mother wasn't a game player either; competition wasn't her thing. So playing games with you was like getting to be a kid all over again!

The game did make lots of racket as those springs for the hippo mouths and the chomping of their jaws were quite loud, so sometimes I had to say "No more!" - especially when I started getting a headache!

Yes, you're in yet another article!

Yep, your picture is in yet another article: This time Seattle Backpackers Magazine ran my article “How to Select a Good Trail for a Child” in its Tuesday edition.

The article examines factors to consider – such as length, elevation gains and dangers – when identifying a trail to day hike with kids (All lessons I learned from hiking with you!). It contains a picture of you playing with your cowboy rifle at the Mormon Rocks near Victorville, Calif., I think from late 2011 (There's a photo album of it on Facbeook) plus another pic of the trail we walked.

Seattle Backpackers Magazine is a popular and well-respected online magazine focusing on backpacking, hiking, climbing and camping. Your picture has been in it a couple of times before when my articles ran in it!

What’s your favorite color?

More than three months have now passed since your mother has let me see or speak with you. I find myself wondering how you've changed during that time - Are you taller? Have you lost your first tooth? What new books have you read? What is your favorite color?

When you were a toddler and during most of your preschool years, green was your favorite color. I'm not certain why. Perhaps since we lived in the desert, green was a rare color and so the novelty excited you or the prettiness of some places we visited where green was omnipresent (like the mountains or ocean coast) left an impression. But if given a choice of clothing, Matchbox cars or some other item, you inevitably picked the green one!

Once you turned four and started attending preschool, blue because your favorite color. Again, not certain why, though I'd agree with your taste for blue is my favorite color, too! And perhaps not as much with green, if given a choice of clothing or toy, you inevitably picked the blue one!

What is your favorite today?

Song lyrics from when you were a baby

Kieran, Halloween 2007, in Eureka, Calif.

Some song lyrics for you today - a song that was quite popular when you were a baby. I always think of you whenever I hear it, especially when you'd crawl in my lap and face me while we lived in Eureka, Calif., where lots of rain fell.

"Bubbly"
(Colbie Caillat)

I've been awake for a while now
You've got me feelin' like a child now
'Cause every time I see your bubbly face
I get the tingles in a silly place

[Chorus:]
And it starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose
Wherever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Wherever you go

The rain is falling on my window pane
But we are hiding in a safer place
Under covers staying safe and warm
You give me feelings that I adore

[Chorus]

But what am I gonna say
When you make me feel this way
I just mmmmm

And they start in my toes
Makes me crinkle my nose
Wherever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Wherever you go

I've been asleep for a while now
You tuck me in just like a child now
'Cause every time you hold me in your arms
I'm comfortable enough to feel your warmth

And it starts in my soul
And I lose all control
When you kiss my nose
The feeling shows
'Cause you make me smile baby
Just take your time now
Holdin' me tight

Wherever wherever wherever you go
Wherever wherever wherever you go

Wherever you go
I always know
'Cause you make me smile
Even just for a while

Your picture, name appear in article

You've made the web once again, Kieran - this time in an article at the Brave Ski Mom blog. It includes a picture of you when we went hiking in April 2011 at Vasquez Rocks (the famous "Kirk rocks" with "Gorn Rock" behind you), and you in arms at the Vetter Mountain lookout tower in August 2009, as well the "Hikes with Tykes" book covers that you're on. The article also mentions you a few times! I've printed a copy of it for you. Can't wait for us to be together ahead so we can do some great hikes!

My journals that you may inherit...

The last couple of days I typed entries about you from my journals of October 2009. As someone who's loved to write since he was in second grade and to make up and tell stories even before I went to school, I have a lot of journals and folders - both paper and on computer - containing my writings. Many are just loose notes and descriptions of places and items, done more to practice and master the craft of writing. Some are short stories, with quite a few of them in desperate need of a rewrite and others waiting to be finished. You'll also find inthere three or four novel manuscripts, some poetry, a couple of starts to plays, and lots of outlines, especially for essays.

I've asked your grandma to keep all of them for you should anything ever happen to me. The writings probably are of limited monetary value, but they do contain my thoughts going back decades before you were born, so in some small way they will provide a connection to me. She will give them to you when you are old enough; should she pass before them, Uncle Chris will keep them for you.

I do imagine that one day you'll become a writer - not out of my personal vanity - but because you have all of the makings of a good writer: an active, creative imagination; a love of stories; a way with words. Should you come across some striking image in my journals that would fit your story or decide that you know exactly how to finish one of those many stories, feel free to use it as your own. It is my small gift to you, my way of being there for you though the fates have conspired against us.

A description of you sleeping in my lap

Looking through the journal I kept from autumn 2009, here's another entry about you, dated Oct. 10, 2009. You were only two at the time but closing on three:

This afternoon you slept in my arms as I sat in the living room recliner, reading Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead." Though the time for me to begin dinner had passed, I could not bear to rise and wake you; you looked so peaceful with your head crooked into my arm and side tucked against my waist. Regardless, we will not have too many more days like this, for you already are just a bit too long to fit comfortably on my lap in that chair, but you're still able to manage it with the bending of legs and slight contortion of the torso.

Upon finishing a section of the novel, I gazed down at you to relish the sweet moment, only to find sweat beaded upon your temple and bove your upper lip. You could not have been hot, for a cool breeze swept through the open windows on this mild autumn day. "He must be having a bad dream," I thought, and this worried me for there really was no way to make the dream stop other than wake you, and - perhaps more worrisome to me - I had no way of knowing what frightened you so in your sleep. You are beginning to imagine the world in way I cannot fathom.

I gently brushed the beaded sweat away with a finger, first the temple, then above the mouth, and finally along your sideburns where new drops had formed. You twitched, but it wasn't enough to wake you, though I must have broken the dream for you did not sweat again.