the best $20 I ever spent

Timmy has been slower than molasses in winter in learning his phonics sounds, but since he should be moving into 1st grade, I pulled out my secret ammunition in the war on illiteracy: How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book goes tiny step by step in teaching a child to read sounds, then short words, then short stories in about 15 minutes a day. I have used this book with 5 children now, after being advised to buy it from the mom who first introduced me to homeschooling 15 years ago. We have never gotten through all 100 lessons, usually quitting at about lesson 60-75 to move on to real books and the Faith and Freedom readers. 

Timmy is still having trouble recalling the short a sound, so we have repeated 2 lessons, but in the past 2 weeks he has started sounding out 3 and 4 letter words. My goal is to have a child who loves to read, so I don't want to overburden him with excessive practice each day, just a slow and steady progression from "the cat sat on the mat" to eventually reading his way through my extensive children's fiction collection.  

faster than the wind

I did very well in two of my last races of the season, winning the female title in the Harvest Run cross country 5K on such a cold morning that the ballpoint pens used for filling in registration forms froze and I had to thaw the ink by repeatedly holding them up to the propane heaters behind the tables. But when 10am arrived, I stripped down to a thin shirt and shorts, pulled on some spikes over my shoes, and ran through the puddles and over the slick grass. Then the following weekend the weather was much more agreeable for University of Maine's homecoming and I came in 2nd in the Black Bear 5K with a new PR of 21:05. This might be an all-time best, including high school, but since finding out would involve searching through a huge Rubbermaid bin of memorabilia, I won't worry about it anytime soon. I've secured first place in my age bracket and moved into 2nd place overall in the Sub5 series standings. Somehow, despite all the logistical chaos of my life with 3 kids in school, homeschooling the little boys, and having to guard all our possessions from a destructive preschooler (her latest feats involved ripping off several keys from Will's old laptop and sprinkling a 1/2 pound of shredded Cheddar all over her bedroom floor in the middle of the night), I have still been able to train and improve my running times.    

3 distinct personalities

Will knew what to expect going into school this year having been down at St. Dominic's for a semester. He also has been in umpteen Scout troops, comfortable being the new kid almost every year and practically jumped out of the car at camp, so eager to be with 100 other boys, despite not knowing a soul. Maggie is my theatrical diva, so outgoing and flamboyant that I wonder some days if she really is the child of two introverted parents, but since she looks just like me and the other girls, I have to assume there was no switching of babies at the hospital. 

Mary is much more beautiful than I ever was, but personality-wise she is almost my exact replica, a little shy and needing to recharge her batteries by reading and being alone for small periods during the day. She does enjoy school and seems to have made many friends as well as impressing her math teacher with her wry sense of humor. However, being "on stage" for 7+ hours a day really takes its toll on her.

Yesterday she was practically vicious when she got into the car because of this pent up stress. She was rude to me, mean to her sister, and when I pulled the car over and told her to apologize, she wasn't sincere in the least bit. I informed her that soccer practice was not going to happen due to her horrid attitude and after arriving home I had to practically stand over her with a stick to make her practice the piano for the required 45 minutes. After she had a short calm down I came up to her room and told her that I understood her feelings, but that it was not acceptable for her to be horrid to us just because we are her family and "have" to take it. We hugged several times and she was pleasant and calm for the rest of the evening. 

She has undertaken a huge transition in her life at a very dramatic point in her development, puberty is fraught with emotional upheaval already, but adding in going to school for the first time didn't help, I'm surprised she hasn't been worse. I can't promise that this afternoon won't be a repeat of yesterday, but at least she knows that her mother understands and will try to give her a little quiet time each day to recover. 

basting woes

Earlier this week I finished a new quilt top, a throw to go on the back of a sofa. I wanted to use all stash fabrics, and managed to do so, even using a great number of scraps, but just didn't have enough of any one deep red fabric for the outer border. Tim and I put the rails on my quilt frame, but put one of the ratchet mechanisms on backwards, leaving me with not enough tension to properly baste the quilt sandwich. 

This is what it looked like afterwards after having pulling out 1/2 of the stitches with a pair of scissors and tweezers. It took me much longer to undo my mistakes than it did to stitch them of course. I re pinned everything back on the frame on Sunday evening and finished basting it again yesterday. Now I am ready to start quilting a leaf and spiral round wreath on each Snowball block and a trailing vine with tiny leaves and spirals through the alternate blocks with some teardrops filling in the background. 

I really love free motion machine quilting, but I'm a little hesitant to try something radically different for fear of having to rip it all back out. I've done all the "unsewing" I plan on doing in the near future, hopefully my sewing will proceed forward rather than back in the next few weeks. The last time I machine quilted the lopsided sitting messed up my hip. With 3 races left in the season I have promised myself not to sew for too long at any one time so we shall see if I can get this quilt finished in time for Christmas.

slow but steady wins the reading race

Last year I was starting to get really nervous about Charlie's reading skills. The other boys in his Cub Scout den were reading directions to various projects from their Wolf books aloud while Charlie was barely sounding out the words. I vowed that night to repeat all his 1st grade readers because it was obvious that he was struggling too much. I heard from the Cub Scout dads that they made their boys read for 30 minutes every night, while my 7 year old was still content to listen to me read picture books with his younger siblings. 

But like the tortoise in Aesop's fable, my 4th child is now reading well. I didn't push him beyond his comfort level, but he did practice reading and phonics every day and now he doesn't blanch at 6 page stories in his Faith and Freedom reader. He also walked to the library after his piano lesson on Friday and checked out several Magic Treehouse books, and he is actually reading them for fun. 

The big kids have mentioned several times that they seems to be called on in class to read aloud more often because they are such good readers. My guess is that all the dramatic reading of picture books to Timmy and Julia Ellen has paid off in terms of style. Even Julia Ellen practices reading with inflection as she sits on the floor flipping pages of the practically memorized Green Eggs and Ham while lisping, "I will not eat them in a BOX! I will not eat them with a FOX!"

My technique to encourage life-long readers by teaching the basics of phonics, requiring a small amount of reading aloud starting in 1st grade, and providing a plethora of interesting reading material seems to have worked. Only 2 more children left and I will be able to see my ideal Sunday afternoon come to life, a living room full of children draped all over the furniture, all so quiet you could hear a mouse squeak, because everyone is concentrating deeply on what they are reading. 

driving me mad

 I have been overheard this past week saying, "If there was an orphanage in Bangor, one of you would be dropped off," meaning Julia Ellen. In the past 4 days she has sniffed out the bigger kid's candy stash and ate every last Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, leaving the wrappers all over the girl's floor while they were at school. She pulled dozens of books off the shelves in the schoolroom, leaving us to pick our way across the floor. She screamed every single time she didn't get her way (which was about every 10 minutes), interrupting school time and grating on my nerves. The final straw today was finding this morning my pretty lime sweatshirt that I had just bought covered in black acrylic paint. 

Yes, it was partly Charlie's fault for leaving his paint somewhere she could reach, and I guess I shouldn't have left my sweatshirt downstairs, but I'm a little tired of the whole toddler/preschooler age. I'm not even pushing the potty training, as I said to another mom of many at the soccer game the other day, "Don't I get a pass after going through this five times already?" I know I shouldn't wish time to go any faster, but I sure do look forward to the day when our home is not quite so messy.

speed demon

Saturday morning I got up, put on my running gear, and drove the Jeep to Blue Hill for the Great Pumpkin 4K race. I was all psyched to run fast and come home with 10 points for the Sub 5 track club series standings. Unfortunately, when 9:30 rolled around I went inside the grocery store and asked, "Has the race been cancelled?" "Uhh. The race is tomorrow," was the reply from the manager. 

Apparently the original series schedule had the race mismarked as being on Saturday, when all subsequent info had it on Sunday at 10:30. So, admiring the lovely town and the beautiful fall foliage coming into peak, I drove home,only to repeat all my preparations the next day and return, this time with a lot more precipitation coming down. When I told one of my friends what had happened, he said, "I can't believe you didn't go ahead and run the course for practice." I replied, "A real runner would have done that. It didn't even dawn on me to do so." 

The rain only let up for the 15 minutes we ran, and I took off in front early with a 6:08 first mile pace. The course was mainly downhill and since doing very well in my last few races, I knew I could maintain that pace for another 1.5 miles. I finished with a time of 15:16 and was the first female finisher, winning a $100 gas card. This was my first win with serious competition and I was grateful for my fellow runners' heartfelt congratulations. 

My racing didn't end in Blue Hill, I had to get home, change, and drive up to Bangor to teach CCD in record time, but we made the cutoff then too, pulling into the parking lot a mere 2 minutes before class began. What I really wanted was a nap, but I made it through class and Mass before collapsing in bed, completely exhausted from my fast paced day.

the whole shebang

Two weeks ago the kids and I ran in the Orono Pie in the Sky 1 mile fun run and 5K. Charlie was phenomenal with a 6:48 mile, Mary and Maggie each ran around 7 min, and Timmy brought up the rear for our crew at 7:48. I got a 5K PR with 21:38, bettering my time over last year's race by 1:17. I ran the first mile a little too fast, but my sub-6 min start didn't seem to affect me later. I won a very tasty apple pie, which I ate for breakfast every morning, heated up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

This morning, after picking Maggie up from her classmate's sleepover party, I ran a revised course for the Multiple Myeloma race and won the entire thing, male and female. Now, I'm not going to suddenly obtain an inflated ego about this, there are several big races today and tomorrow and all the real runners are in one of those. The field was pretty small and in fact, I only recognized two faces from Sub-5, but it was a nice thing to pick up a gift certificate to the sporting goods store for new running gear. 

Or maybe I'll find something nice for Mary, who scored her very first goal, in her first year of playing soccer. I was so impressed by the sportsmanship of her teammates afterwards and a few of the girls even came up to me and said how proud they were of her for her efforts. She has really come out of her shell while playing soccer, showing some aggression that my super-shy girl rarely exhibits.

preparing for winter

Everyone know the fable of the industrious ant and the feckless grasshopper. When cold snows come, the ant is snug and well stocked, while the grasshopper begs for assistance. Now that the leaves are beginning to turn color and the roof shingles show a touch of frost in the morning, our larder is well stocked. 

Starting in early summer and continuing through this week, I started blanching and freezing peas, beans, carrots, cauliflower, blueberries, tomatoes, and peppers. I dug up all the onions and potatoes and stored them in boxes down in the basement. Through the local homeschool group, I ordered 150 pounds of wheat flour to bake bread and cookies all winter, but now I must figure out how to to store it so it doesn't get eaten by rodents, bugs, or weevils. 

For dinner last night I made a green bean and sausage soup in which 4 major ingredients: carrots, potatoes, beans, and onions all were grown in our garden. I don't know if it was healthier than soup made from store-bought items, but it sure did taste better to me.   

chaos

The saying, "You never know how much you have until you have lost it," has certainly struck home this week.  Homeschoolers have so much freedom in their daily lives to get up when they wish, start school when they want, and have their lives centered around their family, rather than around other's schedules. For 9 years we were able to sign the children up for multiple activities because their schoolwork could be completed by mid afternoon most days and they didn't have homework to interfere with evening events. 

Now our days begin with 5:40 revilie, followed by the van driving away at 7am. I do have a lot more time now to work with the boys on their schoolwork without the big kids monopolizing all my attention, so we do play many games and they have more educational computer time. But our afternoons are complete chaos. Last Tuesday was a good example with having to pick up the 3 big ones at 2:40, drive them 25 minutes to their soccer games, pull Will out just after the first half and drive like a mad woman back home to get him to piano lessons at 6:15 (he was still 15 minutes late). Then I had to fix dinner for everyone else and the poor kid was still doing homework at 9pm, when my eyes closed for the night. We have piano lessons for various children 3 evenings a week, Boy Scouts on Wednesday, Cub Scouts on Thursday, and Tim takes over on an occasional Monday so I can go to quilt group. I have spent over $100 in gas this week just to drive everyone up and back to Bangor 2-3 times a day. 

There isn't any activity I am willing to give up right this moment and soccer only lasts another 3 weeks or so. But it has been quite an adjustment going from staying home and doing school in our jammies to being like the Zizzer-Zoof salesmen in Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book,
  

 "All day they've raced around in the heat, at top speeds, Unsuccessfully trying to sell Zizzer-Zoof Seeds Which nobody wants because nobody needs. Tomorrow will come. They'll go back to their chore. They'll start on the road, Zizzer-Zoofing once more." 

1st day of school

Tim starts his new job next Monday, so for the kid's first week of Catholic school he is driving the 30 minute route and dropping them off and I am picking them up in the afternoon. Our first day of homeschooling just the little boys was so peaceful, they did their work, did their chores, and I let them watch a movie while I organized and cleaned my quilting room. Charlie doesn't have half of his books yet since I put off enrolling him until yesterday, but he did read aloud, practice his catechism questions and prayers, listen to science and history, and do an art project with his little brother and sister. 

When I went to pick up the big kids Maggie was so exuberant that she almost hit her head on the ceiling, "I loooove school!" Will related a teacher's warning about, "don't get near the cars, you might get run over," that he got in gym class. He was so disgusted, "Mommy, I'm a Star Scout and was directing traffic at the Strawberry Festival when I was 10," at being treated like a little kid that we both pretended we were that safety conscious about other activities. "Don't touch that paper, you might get a boo-boo on your little finger." 

Mary was a completely different story, she was incensed that I sent them on the first day wearing "the wrong thing." Apparently every other girl wore a skirt and she felt like a dork wearing khaki pants. Even after admitting that she was making friends and that they use the same Saxon math series she has worked through for the past 3 years, she couldn't sleep last night due to nerves about a math test today. I sat with her, gave her a pep talk, and gave her a stuffed animal to hold before going back to bed myself. Math is not her weak subject by far, I'm far more concerned about her spelling and writing skills. My worry is the time factor, between soccer practice, practicing the piano, and homework, I don't know how much free time they will have each day. We seemed to have jumped onto the busy family bus and I doubt we will disembark until next June.         

labor day race

Sunday night I had nightmares, all involving people not understanding how important it was for me to get to the start of the Labor Day 5 miler before the 9am start. Despite all my anxiety-inducing dreams, I managed to be at the start in plenty of time and ran the first mile in 6:10, perhaps a bit fast, but I knew that if I wanted an overall 7:30/mile pace I would have to go fast the first two miles to make up for the "goat path" hill around mile 3 that seems to go straight up and up and up and finally flattening out in front of Stephen King's house with his creepy bat-themed wrought iron fence. 

I finished in 35:40, a 7:08 pace, a full 4 minutes faster than last year's time, but not fast enough to win my age group. I was bummed for a bit, but then found out the women's overall winner was 41, running a 6:20/mile pace, just not something I am capable of. My guilt mitigated, I met the rest of my family at the Sub 5 track club party, where we ate, played games, and talked running. The season is beginning to wind down and I will be looking forward to more restful dreams and sleeping in on weekend mornings. 

  

all in one house

Tim finished up his last day of work down in the southern part of the state and starts his new job next week. So, for the first time in a decade all our family is residing in one location all year. No more deployments, no more admitting "summer people" status, no more waving goodbyes on Sunday afternoon. I can't recall all the times over the past 10 years when I thought I packed an item and realized too late that it was 1000 miles away in a drawer, or a piece of music for piano lessons was left behind, or I couldn't remember if I had enough pillowcases and needed to pack more. This morning was the first nippy day of the season, chilly enough that I had to pull out a wool blanket to cover myself at 2am. 

My box room with its neatly organized bins for kid's clothes was raided for Julia Ellen's fall wardrobe instead of the usual September scramble as I forgot to pack enough larger warm clothes for the smallest child. She is now adequately prepared with 5 pairs of footed pjs, long pants, and a half a dozen turtlenecks. It is so comfortable feeling that if I need an item it is somewhere in this house and all I have to do is unpack the rest of the boxes to find it.   

my second win

On Saturday I left my family and company to drive over to Skowhegan for the New Balance 5K. With both my running shoes frayed and full of holes, I went for the hope of winning one of the 20 pairs of shoes given away by the outlet store. The weather was perfect and before the race began I noticed a mom I had noticed once at the commissary. She is also a Catholic homeschooling mom of 6, though her children are a bit older. We talked about teaching CCD and curriculum and I assume being distracted helped me, because I ran very smoothly and finished with a new PR of 21:58 and was the first female to finish. I used my prize to get Tim a free pair of shoes, he really needed them and was unlikely to purchase them himself. I'm so glad I decided to run, I not only came home with 3 pairs of new shoes, but the phone number of a new friend.

race results

harvest

Today after the children's auntie and uncle left for the rest of their vacation, the little kids and I cleaned up the garden, planted cover crops, and harvested carrots, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and cauliflower. 

The carrots and cauliflower went into the freezer for winter muffins and soups, the onion was spread out on the picnic table to dry, and one of the heirloom tomatoes was sliced up, sprinkled with a bit of salt and eaten in about 4 bites by me. 

I dug up the now empty beds and after spreading a little lime and fertilizer we broadcast buckwheat seeds. The grain we planted a month ago after pulling the peas up is now blooming and perhaps we can even grind some flour to supplement our pancakes.   

course champs!

Last Sunday Tim and I raced in a brand new race in Bucksport to support their cross-country team. The male-female relay had the guy run 3 miles before his female teammate repeated the same course. The brackets were based on the couple's combined age. Tim and I ran together, his first race in at least 20 years, if you don't count running the PRT every 6 months. Despite our good times (23:47 and 22:28), we just happened to be the only pair in the 91-99 year old bracket and won a pair of t-shirts. It was nice to participate in a race that didn't count for any points in the Sub-5 series, just a lovely run through the shaded woods for fun and all the baked goods we could eat. Now that we hold the course record for our age bracket, we will see if we can hold onto it or even beat it next year. 

Tomorrow is another race for fun, the Skowhegan 5K with 20 pairs of New Balance shoes as door prizes. Last year I thought the shoes were for the place winners so I killed myself to win my bracket, only to find out afterwards that they are randomly drawn. I'll see if I can have better luck this year as both Tim and I desperately each need a new pair of running shoes. 

keychains, backpack pulls, and fun

A few weeks ago I found a Shrinky Dink Klutz book at the thrift store for $0.99. Yeah, perhaps a couple of times in my childhood I traced and colored pictures and watched someone bake them in the oven (it wouldn't have been my mother though, she recoiled from anything crafty to do with kids). The special plastic was all torn out, but I headed up to AC Moore, our local big-box craft store with my handy-dandy 50% off coupon in hand. Not only did I get a package of clear plastic discounted, I added on my teacher discount (by showing my HSLDA card) and received another 15% off. Every week on my errands I made a point to stop by and pick up another packet for less than $3. At first I was stressing out about baking them and having them ruined by curling up on themselves, but after purchasing an embossing tool (it's a cross between a glue gun and a mini hairdryer) I can bake and shape their little pictures without even turning on the oven. 

The little boys have gone wild, and while Julia Ellen may have ruined a few of their projects, the results are impressive. The most money I've had to expend in this creative explosion are for a handful of keyrings to attach them to backpacks, lunchboxes, and whatever else they can imagine. 

our last packout

Yesterday, the same day a year ago we packed out to come to Maine, the movers arrived in a big orange truck to box up and wrap in blankets all our possessions. So far the house hasn't sold, despite the picture-perfect views of the mountains and brand new granite countertops, we haven't even had a showing in over a month. But it is clean and free from everything we own now except for a few camping items and Tim's coffee pot. He has another few days of work this week and then the last week of August before he starts his new job. For 12 years I have been alone during most of the summer, shlepping kids to camp and lessons, making them clean and find stray library books, getting them ready for Mass and buying doughnuts afterwards for good behavior. And, yes I organized the packout yesterday alone as well, arriving the evening before, making sure everything went as smoothly as possible and running up to Food City for some lunch for both my crew and the movers since my husband has been living off of Stouffers frozen dinners, coffee, and ice cream. 

But now we are back at the farm and once more I need to get into high organizational mode for they will arrive tomorrow to unload the truck and I have to have this place ready. Today I have to disassemble one set of bunkbeds and pray that they will fit back-to-back with their matching bunkbed in the boy's room. Timmy is too old for a toddler bed anymore and he has been switching between sleeping on a mattress on the floor and bunking with his brother. The girls get another set of bunkbeds with drawers underneath for Julia Ellen's clothes, space is more of a premium in their room with all the dolls, stuffed animals, and such that they accumulate. The double bed in the apartment has to be taken down to the garage to make room for the queen bed from the Auburn house. All the excess beds, dressers, and kitchen items we have accumulated over the years living in two places needs to be taken to the trash and treasure building at the dump. 

Did I mention that at least some of the unpacking must be accomplished by next Thursday when Tim's sister and her husband come for a visit?  I'm not going to panic or stress out, for this is our 10th and last packout in the last 16 years of marriage and I have all the time in the world to rearrange our stuff. 

two firsts

Last Sunday Will served his first Novus Ordo Mass and I received Holy Communion from a lay person for the first time in 12 years. There are so few vocations in the diocese of Maine (only 6 current seminarians) that they have moved to a "cluster" system of staffing parishes. The 6 churches in the greater Bangor area used to be served by 12 priests, but are now covered by 2. They are very good and holy men, but worked to the bone every day, especially on weekends to say Mass at every church. Other parishes in the area are in the same boat, the Bucksport priest travels to Stonington and Castine, each town an hour away from the rectory. He literally has to run out the door after Mass to make it in time for the next one, never able to offer Confession to the outlying parishes. It is a sad state of affairs and I am fervently praying for a new bishop (our old one was transferred to Buffalo) who is orthodox and on fire for the Faith. Orthodoxy in belief and liturgy results in vocations as we can see in both religious orders such as the Nashville Dominicans and the priesthood, as evidenced by FSSP. 

Will has served as an alter server in the Traditional Latin Mass for 7 years now, ever since his FHC at St. Benedict in Virginia. But there is no TLM anywhere near Bangor, and I understand that our priests just can't do one more thing, especially something involving training and taking away another Mass to squeeze it in (they can't legally say more than a certain number of Masses each day). So I made arrangements for him to begin serving, with one non-negotiable; that he not serve with girls. I don't want to go into why I believe that girls reduce the number of boys willing to serve and why this in time dries up the feeder mechanism for future priests, because these arguments are so obvious. So, last week he served with another boy and everything was lovely, both the sacristan and the priest commented positively about his professionalism on the altar. We sat up front after the previous week's debacle, so when it came time for Communion and the priest was distributing Holy Communion to the left hand side of the church, we went up and received in the hand from the lay person. I don't recall if he attempted to bless the little ones, which is not appropriate, but I had to remind myself that while I am a stickler for doing the right thing during the liturgy, others have not had my experience and knowledge. I may be a convert, but I have read and studied the history of the Church and her traditions and know that only a priest or parent is supposed to bless a child. All in all, it was a lovely Mass and I am grateful that the parish is willing to accommodate our "quirks."

This Sunday I thought Will was scheduled to serve Mass, but as I was kneeling in the pew the sacristan asked me to come to the vestibule. He explained that two servers were already scheduled for that Mass, but one of them was a girl. It was up to me if he vested or not. I hesitated for a moment, but said, "He'll just sit with us." He was very gracious about it and promised to talk to the coordinator about having Will serve next week. This has been a big transition for our family and while we knew what we were in for when we left the Auburn area and the TLM every Sunday, it is still hard emotionally. My hope is that our example, as well as the example of other faithful families, combined with the ministry of holy priests, and hopefully a very holy and orthodox new bishop, can, in time lead to a renewal of orthodoxy and more vocations to the priesthood.

too smart by half

Last September the kids and I went to the Bangor Humane Society and brought home 2 kittens. The children and cats played, Julia Ellen dragged them around, and I fed them and cleaned their litter. Today the cats are 1 year old and one of them is not welcome in our house anymore. Star, the girl kitty, loves to lounge around all day and is polite. Night, the boy cat, is huge, muscular, and gets into trouble every day. He gets on the kitchen counters, knocks over vases of flowers, and likes to drink out of the faucet. Fresh water in his bowl every morning is not apparently aerated enough so his latest trick is to turn on the faucet by nudging the handle of the kitchen sink, leaving the water to run for hours. He doesn't merely threaten to let the well go dry, but since the hot water faucet is easier to manipulate, I have woken several mornings to steam rising from the furnace room vent, his having used so much hot water that the tank has refilled and was being heated by expensive propane. I've taken to putting mixing bowls over the handles, but it isn't really a long term solution. 

Several times I've gotten so mad to throw him outside, but all that will do is bring fleas into the house. He can't stay out there because he would be food for the nightly howling coyotes in a matter of days. But since his other trick in the past few weeks is sitting in the mudroom and bolting out the door, I think he really wants to live outside. The only option seems to be to turn Night into a barn cat. He can spend time outside, go into the barn to sleep through a kitty door, and keep the mice under control. Just as the Little Golden book, Four Little Kittens, bases its story around the idea that kittens, like children, have different personalities and vocations, some kittens are just meant to be alley cats, ship cats, barn cats, or house cats and no amount of behavior modification is going to change that.