September, 2007

AT and I went out to dinner tonight:

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Every week, sg's teachers in "Infant B" send out a newsletter with some photos of the week's activity. That's sg in the very first picture, belly-down in the blue paint. I had gotten behind in my personal email, and couldn't figure out that night why my daughter had blue paint in her nose and behind her ear.

Sophia went for her 9 month checkup at the doctors last Friday (9/7/07). One surprising thing from this visit is that Sophia is above the 95th percentile in height. Neither her mother or father can say the same. We have fun imagining ourselves sitting in the stands, tears of joy in our eyes, as she plays for the WNBA.

Sophia has also learned to sit up all on her own. She has been sitting "unsupported" for a while now. What I mean is that she can get from a laying down position to a sitting up position all by herself. She did this for the first time sometime Saturday morning (9/8/07). She was sitting up smiling at us when we went to get her out of her crib that morning. She is rather proud of herself!

I understand that you like fire. Maybe you will enjoy this:

You know who has a college savings account already? Who has her own 529 in the state with the most favorable tax treatment? Who will be able to choose between Harvard and UGA without worrying about the price tag?

Not you, sg. Sorry, sweetie.

Arica and I are still paying for our BAs and BSs, and there is a little bit of "if it was good enough for us, it's good enough for our kids" at work here.

But that's not the only reason sg will have to start her own college savings account; there's also this:

• As someone said to us recently, "there are scholarships and loans for college; they don't have those for retirement, so you have to pay yourself first."
• As far as debt goes, student loans are the good stuff, with government regulated rates and flexible repayment terms.
• Maybe sg won't want to go to college! Or maybe she'd prefer to take out loans for college and have us make a down-payment on her first house, instead. Or maybe she'd prefer a startup investment in her first business. "Sorry, snookums, but if we don't spend the 529 money on tuition, Mommy and Daddy suffer undesirable tax treatment."

The way we figure it, if we make good decisions for the next 18 years, we'll be in a good position to help sg do what she wants to do.

And what if she wants to drop out of school and go live with her dirty hippy boyfriend at a pottery commune? Well then Mommy and Daddy can spend that wad on a nice tropical vacation.