Dallas, Texas

"Good boy, you can do it", holding onto John Ross' hands and taking a few small steps backward, Sue Ellen encouraged her son to toddle a few steps toward her. He had shuffling and crawling down, he loved to feed himself, he seemed to understand the basics of object permanence and he was slowly beginning to use sounds that actually sounded like words; he was happy, healthy and achieving everything he was supposed to at his age according to the book Doctor Danvers had given her at his last check-up. Comparing his progress to some of the other children in their playgroup, she could see where he was a little more advanced and a little further behind some of them in terms of how developed his skills were, and while she sometimes wished he'd verbally communicate with her just a little more, like Marie's daughter Rebecca did, she wasn't worried. John Ross was an individual and he had his own strengths; where Rebecca was advanced for her age in verbal skills, John Ross seemed to be advanced for his age in motor skills. From the way he was always pulling himself up into a standing position and from the way he reached his arms up to anyone taller than him to assist him in keeping his balance, she had a feeling that he'd be standing and walking independently before any of his other skills developed further.

Cheering him on as he walked a few steps forward before his little legs wobbled, his knees bent and he fell back into a sitting position, she let out a loud, genuine laugh as he looked around him curiously before looking up at her, smiling, making a small noise and reaching his arms up again. He was resilient, stubborn and determined and as commendable and beneficial as those traits would be in the future, at present they were more adorable and charming than anything else. She was his mother, it was only natural for her to find his behaviour sweet and fascinating, possibly more than other people would, however, with his large brown eyes and playful, joyful and affectionate disposition, she doubted anyone could resist taking a liking to him. "You like walking don't you?" smiling at him as she spoke, she reached down and took hold of his arms again and repeated what she had done before, stepping back as he stepped toward her.

A good while later, after a little bit of walking practice, some time with his wooden blocks, shape puzzles and his favourite, his colourful and very noisy toy xylophone, she carried him into the kitchen, asked Francisca to prepare his bottle and then continued on upstairs to change him and get him ready for his nap. Sitting in his darkened room, reading him a short story about farm animals as he drank his formula, she smiled to herself contentedly as his eyes began to droop and the grip he had on his bottle slowly became less and less strong; he was falling asleep right on schedule and she felt good. She was sure everything would change soon enough and she would once again find herself feeling completely intimidated and unqualified to deal with the challenges motherhood presented in her life, however, at present, she felt confident, happy and proud of herself and her son.

Across town, JR clinked glasses with his father and grinned to himself with equal pride in himself in his role as vice president of Ewing Oil as Sue Ellen had in herself as the mother of their son. His father had been right about one thing, the wider economy wasn't doing well at all and the oil industry in particular was struggling, however, his father's prediction of doom and gloom for Ewing Oil hadn't been entirely correct. His father had always assumed that his long-term plan wouldn't work and they would really be scraping by during the next year if they weren't careful, however, JR had always maintained that he knew better and his plan to focus on a high quantity of output would work. He had sown the seeds of his plan a long time ago and while Ewing Oil wasn't exactly in its best state at present, it was definitely in a better position than it would have been otherwise. Years ago, when things had started to look a little shaky, he had pushed for Ewing Oil to take a different path to their counterparts; instead of being cautious and worrying about the economy, they were going full steam ahead and pumping as much, selling as much and buying up as much of other, less fortunate companies as they could. The idea of using the misfortunes of other companies to their own advantage wasn't a new one, people had been buying assets cheap from failing entities for millennia as far as he was concerned. As well as that, it wasn't unheard of for a company to do the opposite of what other companies were doing. In this case, instead of cautiously rationing what little supply they had because the United States had reached peak oil production and the amount left to discover and extract was only set to decline from now, Ewing Oil would try and control as much of that domestic oil as they possibly could. If they could pump, refine and sell enough oil now, even in a bad economy, they should theoretically have enough money to buy them some time in the future when they were required to come up with a new strategy and way of running a profitable business. At some point, whether they wanted to or not, they would probably need to look outside the United States to keep up with the demand for the product they sold, he knew that and he was quietly thinking about it, however, at present, that wasn't the main thing on his mind. After months of trying to explain to his father why and how his short-term plan would work, he was beginning to see it all come together and he was very proud of himself.

To be continued…