katie allison granju

cosmic comeuppance March 31, 2005

You know how I said, a few posts below this one, how much I love being a mother and how much I enjoy my children’s company?

Well, the universe has a sense of humor, because tonight my children were absolute hellions — the worst they’ve been as a group in many, many months.

My eldest acted as unpleasant and nasty and teenager-y as he ever has in his life, and my youngest sobbed for one hour straight because he couldn’t find a certain green plastic lego. It was bizarre. It just got worse and worse no matter what I said or did until I had to go out on the back porch and pratice some meditative deep breathing for a few minutes to prevent me from totally losing it and jumping out the window or something.

I think they were all really tired — and Elliot may actually be catching something, his behavior was so wacky and random — because when I made them all lie down with me, they all conked out within five minutes. Looking at them now, all cute and snuggled up in their beds, it’s hard to believe they were so wired and unpleasant only an hour ago, but they were…

At times like this I realize it is very unlikely I will ever live with another adult again — at least until my children are all grown up. I’m not sure I ever want to re-marry anyway, but even if I did, it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone would want to deal with the REALLY hard work of helping to parent three children who are not their own. I mean, on nights like this, I’d leave the house if I could, and heck, I adore these kids.

I have a nanny, Laura, who is 22 and very quirky a… March 30, 2005

I have a nanny, Laura, who is 22 and very quirky and funny. Last night I got home really late (work followed by trip to ER for my sis with Pneumonia — me providing transport and sisterly support). So when I got home, the children were all asleep and Laura was folding clothes in my kitchen and we chatted for a while before she left, talkin’ boys and life and such.

Anyway, she was telling me that she plans to break up with the person she’s been seeing (whom my son Elliot has dubbed “Scary Mike” for no reason any of us can figure out - he’s only met the guy once). I asked Laura what she planned to tell him and she said:

“I was thinking I’d say, ‘I think we should just be acquaintances.’”

I explained to her that one generally tells the guy, “I think we should just be friends as opposed to “acquaintances,” and she said:

“I actually don’t even want to be his acquaintance, but I really like his dog.”

the "bad mommy" orgy

It used to be that all writing by mothers about motherhood was sweet and light and happy. Motherhood was all rainbows and roses and soft-focus babylove. Mothers simply didn’t admit — at least in print (in large part, because no one would print it) that sometimes being a mother is boring, painful, depressing, and just plain hard.

Then came the amazing and wickedly subversive Erma Bombeck, who managed to get publishers to let her write about these things — but only if she couched it all in slapstick humor. Her books sold in the gazillions and mother-readers loved them because lurking just beneath the laughs was the extreme pathos of the darkest days of mothering little kids.

Today, however, the dam has burst and it seems to me that we are now in the midst of some kind of “bad mommy” orgy, with writers and publishers tripping all over each other to see who can admit in print — hard copy or online — to being the worst, darkest, most disturbed mother on the block.

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wordspy March 28, 2005

This site credits me with having coined a new word — “lactivist” — in an article I wrote for the Chicago Sun Times (the same piece also ran in Salon.com).

But I didn’t make this word up and honestly, I have no idea when or where I first heard it.

So if you know the provenance of the word, e-mail me or leave a comment below.

— Katie

well, DUH

From a wire story today about the Army’s recruiting slump:

“The Army has suffered most of the casualties in the war in Iraq. According to an August 2004 study done for the Army, that’s a turnoff to many potential recruits.”

house March 25, 2005

SuesHouse
Originally uploaded by kgranju.

Check out this cool picture my mother found of our family’s house, circa 1900 or so…

It’s in Bell Buckle, TN. The porch is quite different now and those scraggly trees are massive, massive beasts nowadays…

saved! March 24, 2005

I’m 37 years old, so REM provided the soundtrack to much of my adolescence and early adulthood. I even got to interview Peter Buck once for my college newspaper (I asked him stupid questions that at the time, I thought were oh-so-arch-and-clever like, “If you could be any member of KISS, which one would you choose?”).

And now, I am the mother of a teenager myself - my son Henry is 13 — so I think it’s pretty neat that Michael Stipe has made a movie that Henry and I watched together and both loved. We rented “Saved!” last weekend and I thought it was one of the smartest, funniest, sweetest teen comedies I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended.

The music in the movie is terrific too — most of it stuff I’d never heard before. I am busy tracking it down since there doesn’t appear to be an actual soundtrack to the movie available.

pat head summitt March 23, 2005

I’m not much of a sports fan (except for horse sports, to which I am addicted), but if I do have a favorite mainstream sport/team it would be the Tennessee Lady (basketball) Vols. And as all of America knows, Lady Vols Head Coach Pat Summitt last night became the winningest college basketball coach in history — male or female.

Her achievement is all the more interesting given that (from AP story today):

Summitt took over the women’s program at Tennessee in 1974 at age 22 when there were no scholarships and she had to wash the uniforms and drive the team van.

The university honored her by renaming the playing floor at Thompson-Boling Arena, “The Summitt.” That’s pretty neat, but really, isn’t it time that the legendary women’s basketball team at UT becomes “The Vols” and the less-than-successful-for-many-decades men’s basketball team is renamed “The Gentleman Vols”????

I think so.

Spike Speaks

One of my all time fave people, her article on Urban Chicken Farming and how her decision to get chickens corresponded with her own realization that her baby-having years are rapidly disappearing.

Check out the whole enchilada HERE

Normandy Anniversary

scottishsoldier
Originally uploaded by kgranju.

Jane and Henry were in Normandy with their French grandparents during the 60th anniversary memorial celebrations last summer. I just got this picture of them with a Scottish soldier they met there that day. He is wearing his WWII medals on one side and his father’s WWI medals on the opposite side.

Henry

southoffrance
Originally uploaded by kgranju.

My kids’ grandmother finally gave me the photos from the trip to France with my children last summer. I like this one of my son Henry at a cafe on the Mediterranean,

Grrl power

casualjaneandamanda
Originally uploaded by kgranju.

This is a picture of my daughter, Jane (the small one) with her 13 year old pal Amanda at a recent horse show.

One of the reasons I like it that my daughter is involved in equestrian sports is that it’s a very feminist environment. It’s one of the only sports in which men and women compete at absolutely the same level with no accomodations whatsoever made for gender.

And for whatever reason, the world of hunter-jumper/dressagehorse shows and trainers and barns is very female-centric. When we go to horse shows, like we did last weekend, my kids spend the entire day immersed in a world full of confident, athletic, smart, strong girls and women.

There are boys and men who ride (more men compete at the highest levels and internationally), but mostly, this sport is all about women. And it’s a great environment for girls, mothers, and even boys who may not have any other area of their lives where women run the show.

I like writing for a living, even when I have to w… March 21, 2005

I like writing for a living, even when I have to write stuff like this to pay the bills.

I didn’t know this article was online until someone sent it to me today.

girl & pony

janejump3
Originally uploaded by kgranju.

We had a really good horse show this weekend in Cleveland, TN. Here is my daughter Jane with her pony, “Boy Wonder.” They did very well and had a great time. You can see more pix from the show HERE

I am this week’s featured author over at The Mothe…

I am this week’s featured author over at The Mother of All Blogs. It’s a little interview with me about the article I wrote for Salon.com about Gary Ezzo & Co.