Jim,Part of raising them is going with the flow and letting them take the lead--and it sounds like it's time to learn about skateboarding (is there a skateboard park in town, for example, that you can take him to, and supply him with helmet and knee pads? Or perhaps an expedition to a nearby town with a skateboard park is worth the trip. Just be sure your health insurance is paid up!). Build on the zoo interest--encourage him take a class there and learn to be a docent, or find a program that will let him volunteer at the zoo in some behind the scenes capacity. You can enable him to build on what interests him now, and he'll be reminded of what interested him when he was smaller. Enjoy what he can do now, don't mourn that the little boy is gone. You'll get there, but it takes work. (I'm having to practice what I preach, as my oldest enters her teen years).
As my kids get older, I've clung doggedly to our practice of reading at bedtime. We don't always manage it every night, but we still read several nights a week. And lately they've been telling me "Mom, I want to read this to you." Articles, poems, email. It's the sharing that is still important. I tried to read a funny email to them last night (about the "Urka Gurka Clock") and was laughing so hard I could hardly read, and they were in stitches watching me laugh. The piece isn't particularly meritorious, but the sharing and laughter were (and Dylan asked to read it quietly to himself afterward so he could see what it actually said!). We enjoy poetry, and read quite a bit of it, and whenever I read a poem that my Dad put to music (quite often, as it happens) they know I can't read it, but must sing it. My daughter commented about a poem she took to school for a project last year (a favorite that we read for dramatic effect--"Barbara Frietchie") that "I can hear your voice when I read it." So Jim, figure out things you can do with your son in which he will in the future "hear your voice" or remember your touch.
How's that for "more specific" recommendations?
Maggie