News and notes

Another school year is almost in the books. It’s crazy how fast time flies now. I remember when I was growing up, wanting to be done with high school, and how the school year seemed to last forever. Now I find myself constantly unsure of what month it is. And it’s not like I’m just lagging behind a little bit. Sometimes I think it might be November when it’s April or vice versa.

As we head into the summer I thought it appropriate to give a little update on everyone in the Franklin clan.

Of course yesterday was Mother’s Day so we ought to start with the queen bee (and no, that bee is NOT short for another word). Missy has been kicking some butt lately (even more than usual).

This semester she taught her usual class at OU and did her usual once-per-week overnight shift in the labor unit. But she also picked up another part-time gig at the hospital that lasted a month or so which mostly involved her being on call. We realized that doing all three at the same time was probably a bit too much but this poker habit I picked up won’t pay for itself so she’s just going to have to deal with it.

Besides all that, she’s also coached Addison’s volleyball team and done a masterful job in our garden.

Now that the semester is over, so are two of her three jobs, at least for the next month. So we celebrated all of that and Mother’s Day at Missy’s favorite restaurant in the whole world, a hibachi place in Lawton called Kudo’s. Some of our favorite people, the Goodmans, were able to join us and it was a great dinner.

Speaking of moms, my wonderful mom has been in a lot of pain lately and is having hip replacement surgery at the end of this month. Some of my favorite memories with mom involve going for walks in the neighborhood, and those just aren’t possible right now with the amount of pain she’s in. Her feisty dog Harry B told me he also hopes to get mom back into walking condition. Her knee replacements about 15 years ago did wonders, so here’s hoping the hip surgery is as effective. Our whole family would appreciate prayers that everything goes smoothly.

Today Addie has two end of year parties, one for drama club and one for volleyball. She did an amazing job in her drama performance last Friday and the volleyball team won their final game of the season the next day. This summer she’ll try fast-pitch softball for the first time. I think she has a natural talent for it and with no school I figure I can make her practice about 90 hours per week until she gets offered a college scholarship in July.

Maddux is finishing pre-K and is ready to go school all day this fall. He’s come a long way with his vocabulary and knowledge of numbers and the alphabet. Last night he told us two knock-knock jokes he came up with.

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Zero.

Zero who?

Zero. Like nobody is there!

Then he tricked me on the second one, since I was expecting the same punch line as the first one.

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

None.

None who?

None of your business.

Myra is graduating from kindergarten. Her favorite thing this year was learning about chickens and then watching as the seven eggs her class got hatched. Myra even got to name one of the chickens, Rainbow. (Last night Joey asked if she named it Fried).

Hawk has been super cute of late. He’s intellectually ready for school but will have to wait two years before he’s old enough for pre-K. His vocabulary and deductive reasoning are really impressive, he just needs to work on communicating his emotions a little better (probably true for every 3-year-old). The other day Missy asked him what he was eating. He said, “I’m eating the grilled cheese sandwich. You can have the boy cheese sandwich.”

As for me, I had a great time celebrating at Kudos last night and am really looking forward to Friday. That day I get to help Maddux and some other pre-K kids go through Super Kids day at school, where they compete in a kind of elementary school Olympics. Then we scored some cheap OKC Dodgers tickets through OU Medical so we’re going to that as a family.