How to raise a California boy in the 21st century

Those pancakes? Organic multi-grain, fair trade chocolate, with organic whipping cream.

My father is a wild man. Not like a Harley driving, bail hopping wild man. Like a Natty Bumppo, living off the land, hunting, fishing, and trapping things, wild man. He grew up with a cast of characters whose names sound like something from a clever novel set in the 50's: Billy Goule, Butchy O'Green, Olee (whose last name escapes me), and my favorite Jiffy Kajeski. 


They trapped snapping turtles in the river near their house, fished in Lake Michigan, and went deer hunting with their dads when the weather turned cold. I imagine them all in high cuffed blue jeans, toy six shooters holstered, with lucky strikes rolled into the sleeves of their white tees at the ripe age of nine. This post is designed to make him roll his eyes, and shake his head with disappointment. Here's to you Peepaw, the spawn of your spawn.

Things to know about Jack at Three (and a half)
1. His favorite food is soy chicken nuggets
2. To my knowledge, he has never touched a bug (ok, he's touched a bug, a LADYBUG we set free in the garden, and a spider he collected with his bug vacuum) 
3. All of his socks are made from organic bamboo 
4. Sometimes he pees sitting down (less now that he goes to school)
5. He loves green smoothies filled with kale, spinach, and SPIRULINA
6. His best friend in the whole world is a girl.
7. He wears organic cotton pants with stripes on them. Daily
8. Until he cracked his head open last month, I had never put a band-aid on him. Not a scratch in 3 years

Of course I'm leaving out that he loves trucks, guns, star wars, football, monsters, robots, and anything that explodes. His favorite way to wake me up in the morning, is to creep into the room with some sort of weapon and "shoot" me awake.  After this post, I'm sure Nipper is going to get him some camo pants and send him out into the Angeles National Forest to fend for himself amongst the bears and meth labs. Don't worry baby, mommy will pack you some locally harvested organic trail mix and a horizon milk in your, what do you call it (?) rucksack.