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Like most small children, Ian has no "inner voice" whatever he thinks comes out his mouth. For him this results in an endless stream of chatter that I find to be even slightly musical. I love to listen to him. It provides valuable information about what he's thinking about, what's important to him, and what he is actively trying to learn about.

Now days I hear more and more of my own voice and the voice of the adults in his world in his chatter. "Yea!", "Good job", "Hi Baby!", "No, no, no", "Oh my goodness", "Trash", "No way", "Thank you", "Excuse me", "Wifey", "Heavenly Father, Amen", "At home, at school, at play", "going to church. See momma may", "Mommy's ok?", "Going to Nini's house. See the kids" "Happy, Happy".

A well known Psychologist (erikson, I think, but I'm not sure) said that when a child is small, they don't have an inner voice. They use their outer voice to think through and understand the world, as they grow older, their outer voice shifts inward. It recently occured to me, if his outer voice echos me. So will his inner voice. That's right. The words I say. The words Dave says. The words the other adults in his world say to him will ultimately become his inner voice. The voice he will use to guide him through his life. Thus far I hear a happy kid who knows he's loved and know's how to love others and really likes trains and cars, likes church, and is really interested in Heavenly Father.

I still remember my mother's voice, "You are my pride and joy." She also believed I was smart and kind and really pretty. She reminded me to be modest, obey the word of wisdom of wisdom, and warned me against people that might try to put their hands where they don't belong. She taught me to find joy in service. Her words protected me against alot of pain in life.

It makes me realize how important it is to make sure the things I say are loving, kind, productive, and instructive. I've always believed that children become what you believe they are. Now I understand why.

So recently (over the past 6 months), I have some to realize my own financial cluelessness. (Don't worry, obviously not in the same ball park as my father.) It's amazing. I went to school for 6 years and had only a single 45 min lecture on personal/ family finance. Back in June, we got a copy of our credit report. I was absolutely shocked. We were paying mass quantities of our income in debt, not including student loans or our home. Our payments were equal to our mortgage payment. It didn't really even know how it happened. (I have since slowly come to understand. Ironically- Most of it came out of simple ignorance and not knowing how to plan.) Fortunately, we had a copy of "Transforming Debt into Wealth" by John Cummuta. I had listened to it before, and we had made modifications accordingly, but I guess this time, we were ready. Basically, he presents a plan similar to "One for the money" that the church publishes. Only this program provides a lot more education in the process. Well, 6 months later, we have recovered much of those resources, and by April, we will have recovered the remainder. And in the process of our learning, we have discovered something amazing.... the path to financial security and freedom. I think there's some hope for us.

Even better, if we stay on target and don't loose our way, Ian will have something I don't have... Parents to are comfortable in their retirement- and can take care of his college- so he can focus on doing great things with his life.

Maybe, in the distant future, we will even be stable enough to make a real difference for my father. In the meantime, I'm satisfied with learning to manage finances myself. It's already made a huge difference.

My dad said something once that hit me. He said, "I made good money at times, I just never saved for a rainy day." It's true. He really was doing well at times, but it did him no good. He refused to learn about finances. He NEVER managed his own finances. He always delegated them to someone else and refused to learn. He has paid the price.

But the problem is, so have his children. He dropped us off at my aunts door when I was 13 and just never made it back. It was a sess pool. Both my brother and I were seriously taken advantage of. My brother far more than me. Now that my father is older, he wants those years back- both the one's when he was an absent workaholic and when he abdicated those responsibilities. Well, their gone.

Wow. I sure am venting here. There really is a point to all of this. Financial responsibility is important. Without it, a person can loose everything.

What sucks most of all, is that I know that I will be supporting that guy in his retirement years. What a huge, scarey burden it is to know that I will need to not only save for my own childrens' college and my retirement, but also for my father's in 15 years. That's right. The same jerk that hasn't supported me since I was 13. If he had his way, I would also be supporting him through his early retirement years (now.)

Honestly, it's selfish. You mismanage your finances your whole life and I get to feel bad about myself for not being able to fix your problems in the present, and get to carry your financial burden and rob from my children's security in the future. Thanks Dad.

All right, just a couple of months ago, I would have given him ample merit for his contributions to my life- giving me the gospel. But honestly, recently he has burned me deeply. Sorry for the venting session.

Over the past 6 months or so, I have spent a lot of time learning about finances. I've come to understand that I, like most people have been completely clueless on the subject. It's amazing that a person can go through 6 years of school and only have a single lecture about personal/family financial management.

I look at my father. the man has worked hard all of his life. 12 hour days. He truly is and has always been a workaholic. Yet, he still lives in abject poverty. Truly abject poverty. It's terrible. I feel bad about myself every time I go to visit him. He lives in an old broken down trailor in a row of trailors out in the middle of no where. I lived there when I was 15. There was plywood to keep us from falling through the floor, and ripped plastic to fight the cold wind from getting through the broken window. It was colder inside in the winter than outside. We had to boil water to take a bath. My step sister later became bald because of the water we were drinking.

Well, now he's moved next door, to a slightly nicer trailor, only for his situation to become far worse. He got really hurt at work several years ago. Since then, he's only been able to get spotty work - from a guy that usually doesn't pay him. He's survived only off of the church. Most of my step-mom's 5 kids, their kids, and their kids are all living there and mooching off of my mostly unemployed father. None with jobs and several doing drugs. It's a mess. It's a virtual sess pool, where everyone meets the minimum of their potential.

I have, of course, given him money from time to time to help out , but it hasn't made a lick of difference. I could hand the man 50k tomorrow (if I had it) and it still wouldn't improve their circumstances. They might pay off the trailor, but the money saved would just get sucked away by the sess pool.

Having grown up partially in that environment, I know how much they despise "rich" people (aka- even folks who are in lower middle class ranks are "rich" to them.). I know that I now qualify as "rich". I feel miserable about myself every time I think about my father.... I'm comfortable. Maybe if I shared, we would both be ok. But the truth is, it doesn't work that way. (see the previous paragraph).

Here's the video from Ian's birthday party.

Wow. Our little boy has developed quite a set of lungs. It doesn't matter if he's happy or sad, his voice volume is WAY up. He hasn't quite located his volume control knob, much less learned how to use it. He's got two volumes- loud and screaming. Our ears are about to fall into shreds. We are working diligently on it, but in the mean time- WOW! Eich. I'm sure over time and with diligent effort, this too will be managed, but the process required to get there is quite head ache inducing.

Unfortunately, if he is my child, he will still be having volume control issues at 30. We might be in for the long haul on this one. Who knows. But we love our boy. He's truly a great kid.

Houston Downtown Aquarium

One of my favorite things about having a little boy is that he forces me to get out and enjoy life. Fortunately Houston has quite lot to enjoy. We have a great downtown aquarium. They have a fully functioning coral reaf, another exhibit with fish that are twice the size of Ian, white tigers, and a whole maze full of underwater delights. They have this great train ride to see the sharks. Ian didn't care about the sharks so much (he was pretty disappointed when the train stopped so that the passengers could see them), but he sure loved that train!

Dave and I laughed. It was just a dumb train. The adult me would have laughed at the cheesy little thing. But for Ian, that 5 minute train ride was the most exciting thing in the world. Life really is more fun with a munchkin to enjoy it with.

Well, with the advent of iLife '08, I've finally gotten around to encoding some of our home videos. The first two are actually from the same time, shortly before Christmas last year. Ian loved to just sit in the middle of the train track and watch it go around. When he was finished, he decided he needed a bit of a wrestle.

The last video is of him walking shortly after learning how. It was like a new art for the little guy, it's all he wanted to do.

In the next couple of days I'll post the video from Christmas morning. Cheers!