Life re: Bourne

Hi Grandpa Art, circa 1980

2008-07-30T20:05:00.002-05:00

Waiting for Liam

2008-07-29T18:40:00.005-05:00

There is a boy across the street that Frank is taken with. A cool guy, I guess. Every a.m. my little early bird is up and out the door by 7 a.m., wearing his tie-dye shirt, backwards skull baseball cap and black-with-skulls sneakers.

This morning his sister asked us, "Why is Frank walking up and down on the sidewalk, wearing his hat backwards and looking at his reflection in the side of the car?" Tim snuck outside and took these pictures:

To Iowa or not to Iowa?

2008-07-29T17:18:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to decide whether to go to visit my mom's mom in southern Iowa this summer. Actually I decided that I would go several months ago, but time is slipping by and I'm letting the summertime opportunity pass, by doing nothing.

Here are a few "cons":

-gas$$$$

- being in car with 3 whiney kids for ++ hours

-being in car with crab-ass spouse

-having to watch uncle Joe sit in his barca-lounger and use a pepsi bottle for a spittoon

-hearing about how them mexicans are trashing up the neighborhood

The "pros"? More to come.

lefty loosie

2008-07-16T12:50:00.003-05:00

it's hard being oldest

2008-07-14T17:42:00.001-05:00

Photoblog Summer 2008

2008-07-03T19:07:00.001-05:00

welcome to the wonderful world of boys

2007-09-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

My first child is so good. Too good, actually, and that is one thing that is hard about parenting her. She fears authority figures more than she should, and she doesn't handle her imperfections well. She's kind of a typical first child.

My second child is bringing me new challenges that I didn't see coming. He's been in trouble at school this week, so I am being introduced to what it's like to have a kid who isn't always trying to be good. It's not terribly serious, and anyone who knows my son knows that he is a gentle, thoughtful person. But he is also six, and a boy, and on a mission to be in the "funny club" at school.

I emailed his teacher this week about what I had heard from Frank about him getting "yellow cards" and a "red card" in class. The way I understand it, everyone starts out the school day with a green card. If they make some not good choices, they get their green card taken and exchanged for a yellow card. If they make BAD choices, they get a red card.

Here is the email I got back from the teacher this morning.

Does it make me a bad parent if I laughed when I read it? No kids saw me while I was laughing, and I did tell little Mr. Funny Club that if he came home with anything but a green card today, he would get a consequence that he would not like. He looked nervous enough about that, so I think I'm on the right track with this. Time will tell, I guess. We shall see...

Hi Kate,

Monday he got a yellow card for poking holes in pink
erasers with pencils. He had to write: Ich werde Dinge
respektieren. 3 x.

Tuesday he got a red card for holding two sharpened
pencils 2 inches away from a neighbors eye and smiling
while doing it. He had to write: Ich werde Leute
respektieren. 5 x.

Wednesday he got a yellow card for repeatedly getting
off task while doing his work. He had to write: Ich
werde arbeiten. 3 x.

Other than those times, he has behaved fine. He has
not brought his math homework book in for a few days
though.

Herr S.

How we get to talk without interruption (Or IM Part II)

2007-09-24T16:20:00.000-05:00

franksmama:
I'm sitting in the new guest room, just watched Frank run into his room with no pants or undies
tim:
??
franksmama:
from the bathroom
tim:
did he have an accident?
franksmama:
after running home saying he had to poop
tim:
did he come home from school by himself?
franksmama:
so he ran into his room holding his pants with two fingers
extended from his body
he didn't see me
I wonder if he will try to hide them
he's been known to throw poopy undies behind a radiator.
tim:
who is this kid?
franksmama:
yours
we were walking together from school. he threw down his lunchpail and backpack en route
and said he had to poop. I said run home. he
ran up the hill with one hand on his butt.
now I hear him playing something in his room
he's probably forgotten all about it
he was also telling tall tales on the way home
about how he got in trouble
and the whole class got no free play
tim:
so he did not get into trouble?
franksmama:
I don't know
I think his brain was backed up
with
poop
I just asked him why he changed
his pants
he says because he was hot
I said why'd you change your undies?
he gulped and got big eyes
said they were making him hot also
oh well. one more pile of shit to clean. what's new
when are you coming home
to clean up piles
tim:
be there at 5:00
franksmama:
of shit with me?
tim mcguire
just point me at the pile and be positive and I'll do anything you ask
franksmama:
be positive?!
can you write me a script so I know how to do that?
tim:
sure: instead of : " you never clean up anything, so how about cleaning up this pile of shit"
you could say, " Hey, you are so good at cleaning that I Saved this pile of shit for you"
franksmama: okay, thanks. I'll try that.

Family Trees

2007-08-23T19:53:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my husband's brother, I have been propelled into the machinery of the online genealogy industry. And I'm digging it! What a great way to document history that too often dies with our oldest family members. I have some family information in my head that my brother and cousins may not, and I have also been googling the names of older ancestors and accessing other people's research to add to my growing tree. I see how easily it could spiral out of control, each tree having so many complicated branches. So many wives and children! My goal is to stop branching out when I get to the family member who immigrated to the United States. Still a lot of work as I look into my Grandma D.'s German roots, the "Sturm" family, who came to Maryland in 1770s . The funny thing is, she told me she was English, and her maiden name is "Storm". After I am done here I will email her about this misinformation! She will be fascinated to know that I am able to gather this information directly off the Internet. Anyway, I pulled out some papers that her brother sent to me a few years ago, before he died. One is a letter that their mom wrote, about a month after her husband (Frank) was struck by lightening and killed in a field with another farmer. My grandma was 4, and her brother was 3.

Lone Tree, Ia
Aug 13, 16

Dear Friends,

I will try and answer your letter I received some time ago. This is Sunday afternoon and a lonesome day for me, but then every day is that way unless I am busy. I am up at Papa's now, have been all week. He hasn't been feeling very well this last week.

Well I suppose you have been wondering what I am going to do. I hardly know my self but think I will spend most of my time with Papa as long as he lasts. Mable and Craig are doing the chores and we get down tow or three times a week, generally.

Well the last four weeks have been the longest weeks I have ever been thru in all my life. Gertie, you say you have tried to imagine yourself in my place, but you never can unless you were there once. I suppose it isn't much use to tell you the whole story over because you saw it in the paper, but I will always think that Frank's watch was the cause of his death. It struck his head and burned a streak of his hair from the top of his head down behind his ear, then down around his neck about where the shirt collar came from, there it jumped across his watch which was right over his heart. It pulled the ring out of his watch and ground the crystal to powder and broke one of the wheels in two pieces and broke off a little peg that the wheel set on. Oh, it all seems like a dream to me. I don't know weather I will ever come to realize it or not. Harold, poor little fellow, he thinks "the Oman's killed his papa." The neighbors brought Frank home in a wagon and he thinks because they brought him home dead that they must have killed him. We washed Frank's clothes that he had on when he was killed and I was putting them away the other day and Harold was standing watching me and he said "Poor Papa." the bible says the Lord has a reason and a purpose for doing all these things and at night after the children are asleep I lay and try to think what I have done that I should have this punishment sent on me, but I suppose "Some day we'll understand."

Well I will bring my letter to a close for this time. Will try and write more next time. My heart aches so just now.

Send my letter to Lone Tree in care of F. J. Atkin.

With Love,

Iva

Request for follow up about the bothersome bird

2007-08-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

A friend asked about what happened with the pheasant, so here is my update.

I called around trying to figure out the "right" thing to do with it besides knocking it in the head with a frying pan, which I am not brave enough to do. What I learned was that animal control was my best bet. I posted another message to the board, telling the neighborhood readers who cared that they could catch the pheasant and take it to a nearby wildlife conservation place, or they could call animal control. I retitled the thread "nuisance bird". This was what posted shortly after that:

>
> Please, Kate, be patient.
> The person who raised the pheasant has been alerted to your concerns,
> and a new location will be provided for it, somewhere out in the
> country side. The pheasant is not sick, just very habituated to humans.
>
> I, for one, have enjoyed seeing this lovely creature at our bird
> feeder. It's feathers are magnificent, the way they catch the sun,
> reflecting golden greens, reds and oranges - something few of us
> non-hunters of pheasants ever see. My neighbors agree with me. There
> are those of us who find this taste of Nature reviving.
> Our neighborhood was an edge of prairie city were Nature blended with Man. It
> has become more of an urban area, and I regret that loss.
>
> Anyway, there is no need to panic, a broom will shoe off the bird,
> and soon we won't have his presence to remind us of G-d's wonders.
>

Posted by: "franksmama1"
Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:22 pm (PST)

I'm calling animal control if the bird comes near my family again. Any animal who is biting
and diving at people is a danger and a nuisance, and should not be left to roam around
the neighborhood.

Hopefully his trip to the countryside will allow someone to be reminded of G-d's wonders
at their Sunday dinner table.

My post to the neighborhood yahoo list

2007-08-14T16:03:00.000-05:00

Wild Pheasant? Turkey gone mad?

Hi,

I have a crazed pheasant ( I think, but I know nothing about birds)
that is making itself at home in my yard this afternoon. The trouble
is that it is also chasing my kids around the yard when they go out,
and even trying to peck at them! Then after I pulled the kids
inside, the bird has been jumping up and trying to perch on the
windowsills around our porch, pecking at the windows!

Anybody know anything about such birds in our neighborhood? Should
I call someone like DNR to come get this thing out of here?

Thanks,

Kate

IMing is how we talk

2007-08-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

you want to go to the dentist one of these days?

tim mcg:
yes. what made you ask?
franksmama1:

I could sense it .
I will make an appt for you.

tim mcg:
you mean with your sense of smell?

franksmama1:
I am sensitive in many ways.
did you know that most married men perform better and get paid better at work than their female counterparts
because the men have a wife at home
or at work
making their dental appts for them, as well as cooking and shopping and buying their underwear
the working women need a wife to take care of their shit
so that they can get paid better and perform at work with fewer family life related distractions
did you know that?

tim mcg:
(I am currently idle)

this is not working

2007-07-25T22:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, I see that this is not working. I think about posting something every day, think about things I want to write. But then I remember "oh yeah I have to post pictures in my posts." Why? Because I said I would, of course. But then I think about the steps I have to take to post pics. Is it really that hard? Probably not. I simply have to go into the iphoto program and pull some picture out and download them to my desktop. Then go into blogger and hit the picture button and then download the pics to the blog. But then I start looking at the pictures and wondering "which ones?" and "what is my theme here?" and it all seems like too much work. So instead I go throw some laundry in the washing machine or step outside to pull a few weeds or think about how I'd rather write a post about why I cried so much at the movie "Once". (hint: it has to do with the sweet, young mother not following her artistic calling.) Or, more likely, I listen to kids ask me to do stuff with them around the house - "mama, will you draw with me?", "mom, play 'linerider' with me." or "mama, can you make my fingernails look 'dootiful'?" Then these distractions, my daily life, get the best of me, and I settle into the comfort of the couch cushions and warm little people, and enjoy my 24th readying of "Arthur's Teacher Moves In".

I would like to post some pictures of my weekend trip with kids to Living History Farms and our blueberry picking adventure with David and cookie Tim. And it will happen. Soon, just not tonight.

pops with girl

2007-07-05T20:38:00.000-05:00

1,292,976,000 seconds

2007-06-26T15:56:00.001-05:00

A Frank-type question is this: "How many seconds are there in 6 years?" We spent a half hour figuring out the answer to that question, as well as how many seconds there are in 3 years as well as how many seconds there are in 8 years. Also learned that today I am 1,292,976,000 seconds old! Definitely a milestone worth marking.

Here are projects we've been working on since we've come home from vacation:
Watch for updates as we progress! We can only work on it when # 3 is asleep or off visiting friends.
Maggie's reading log since she started it Monday. She gets a free book from the library after 10 hours of reading.
Franco fighting with his friend Daniel over a "lego guy."
Momo's birthday portraits of her mom. I'm helping her move her finger off the lense of the camera. The second one is my favorite, since she got the 1977 portrait of me in frame, and also somehow created a halo for me.

Babs: we don't have A/C!

2007-06-16T19:35:00.000-05:00

My email sending function is not working here at the hotel where the wedding is happening. I don't know why. So I hope that our friend Barbara will read this and see my message. Sorry, no air conditioning! I thought you knew that. There are fans in all of our bedrooms though. Katy from next door is going to be coming over to water my plants around the house every few days. IF it rains, could you please close the windows, Babs? If it appears you are not able to Katy will come over to take care of it.

Now, pictures from the past few days:

Katy, our neighbor, is from Annapolis. She gave the kids the assignment of finding Alex Haley.

Here is Maggie on the plane, with her favorite birthday present.

And here are other scenes from this leg of our trip. Tomorrow we move on to Richmond, to see more cousins, the Wagner girls.

a birthday and a wedding

2007-06-13T23:08:00.000-05:00

The past couple of days have been very full. Yesterday our oldest child turned 8, which I am still astonished by. I spent the hot a.m. driving 3 kids around, gathering birthday celebration stuff. And Maggie's big present of her first pair of Irish dance "hard" shoes. $$$$$$! She's excited and I know she'll be using them because her lessons at the neighborhood Irish dance school will continue throughout the summer.

Tomorrow we leave for the east coast for 10 days. A wedding over the weekend, then to Richmond to visit my brother and his family. Kids are psyched, and I am having a panic attack about how to get all this packing etc. done. I should take a picture of the huge mound of laundry I am sitting on as I type. Mr. Tim is at work, doing something he needs to finish before we leave, and printing the boarding passes. i hope.

I'm ready for a nap, but I better get busy. Time for a chocolate ice cream break.

Frankie's frog

2007-06-11T22:29:00.000-05:00

Or, I guess it's a toad since we found it in the back yard. Frank took the picture.

weekend

2007-06-10T20:32:00.000-05:00

My number 1 plan for this summer is to not overschedule. I have not signed any one up for Harry Potter day camp or Zoo classes or swimming lessons. It gets easier every day for me to admit that too much busy-ness makes me cranky. I hate running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I know I'm weird this way, definitely not in the majority. Nonetheless, we spent a fair amount of time on Saturday running around. Driving around, I should say. One worthwhile event was an engagement party for my step brother. Here are pictures. Bubba had only one clean outfit to wear, and that was the seersucker jacket outfit I got for him to wear to a wedding we are going to this weekend. I was trying to take his picture in it, but he kept getting away from me. "I feel like an idiot." is what he had to say about wearing this outfit.

Today Art Jr. came home with a slip and slide. It was hot, and the kids had a good time. Meanwhile A.J. could cut grass and I could move hosta.

Practice picture

2007-06-10T01:52:00.000-05:00

My friend Hilary snapped this photo in May when she was visiting us. It is me and noisebucket #3. It is a perfect example of how differently focused this mother and child are! It also scares me how much I am looking and acting like my dad.

I'm back

2007-06-09T01:11:00.000-05:00

Wow, I've been out of the loop for so long! I guess it makes sense that I gave up blogging when I started a part-time job at my kid's school a year ago. I guess I was also done with my old blog topics and ready to move on to something else. And here we are already, now it's summer vacation! The last day of school was June 7. Time for me to hang with the kidlets since I will not be working at my school job this summer.

So, here's what I'd like to do at this blog during this summer of 2007:

1. Write. I dropped this habit when I quit blogging, and since feeling guilty about not writing is not getting me back in the saddle, maybe resurrecting this little blog will.
2. Figure out how to post pictures. I've never done this much, and I want to start. Post one picture every day this summer, even if I don't post words.
3. Create something I can share with my kids, about what we do together this summer. Maybe even invite them to provide a guest post every now and then.

And now, here are my key players, using but updating the aliases I gave us two years ago when I started this particular blog:

me: Katy, Kate, Mama, Mom, Katzkeroo
my spouse: timmy, The Big Man, Art Jr, A.J., bike freak, internet addict, Chunky Monkey
eldest child, age 8 (almost): Magda, Magdalena, little Katy (poor thing), Katy Jr. , tiny dancer, Nina
middle child (age 6): boy is he!, Franco, Francisco, Sir Francophile, Bubba, Crabcake, my little Cermudgeon, A.J. jr. , little man
youngest (3): Mo, Moo-Moo, Moey, Maureen, Babykins, Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with Maureeny

Tune in and see if I pull this off or not! I think it just might work!

Just Moved In

2005-10-14T09:46:00.000-05:00

We just moved in to our new house, and the place really looks it. That's why I'm sitting in a coffee shop, writing. Got the kids where they need to go, and now am waiting to go to an appointment at 10:00. Then it's back home to work on creating some order on the homefront.

Here are the main players in this story:

me- K.T., mother of 3.
spouse-A.J. (Art Jr.)
Little K.T. -6 years old and a belly full of fire
Bubba- 4 years old, also known as "Little A.J."
Miss Moppet-1 year old, also known as "Little Irish Washerwoman"

Now, on to The House.

2005-10-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

Starting anew. Fresh. Clean.

Fall!