Dad, Father, Papa, Padre

Last Friday marked the 7th week of our babies' development. I've taken to calling him Boris. I don't know if it will be a he and at this point I'm not sure if the parts are there to make a difference. The point is, I'm going to be a father.

That's pretty cool.

I've been giving it a lot of thought though, and this is it. This doodle can't be un-did. (if you know that line I congratulate you.) Not that I want it to be un-did, but my life is about the change a lot. I've already anticipated a lot of the changes, but there are some that I don't think I'll recognize until they rear up and kick me in the shins.

I've also been thinking about parenting, and being a parent, and being responsible for proper up-bringing of my child. Everyone has heard the quote, "Before I had children I had five theories on raising them, now I have five children and no theories." I'm definately at the stage of having five theories. In fact, I want to have more theories, because I have an overarching theory:

The more theories one has, the more likely it is that one of them will work.

So, this is a shout out to everyone that wants to have their opinion heard about parenting. What are some of the parenting tools you find useful, or have heard about and think would be useful.

I'll give you a couple examples of those I've heard:

My good friend Liz Rhodes, once told me that growing up, she was required by her parents to always be involved in a sport, a musical instrument, and one other extra-curricular activity. I think that's great! She is an amazingly well rounded individual and I've had awesome conversations with her on just about any subject you can imagine.

My first companion on the mission, Joe Sheppard, told me that in his house the children were considered little children until they proved themselves otherwise. The little kids had to go to bed at an earlier hour and were denied certain other privaleges. To be a "big kid" they had to read their scriptures every day and fulfill their chore obligations as well. According to their consistancy and performance, they were identified as either a big kid or a little kid and treated accordingly.

I think those are both great ideas.

What are yours?