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• Adult Garanimals: What's Your Working Mom Uniform?

  Here I am earlier tonight, talking to the very clever students who run the University of Tennessee's digital journalism showcase,TNJN. I had a great time, and appreciate having been asked. As you can see in the photo below, I am wearing my defacto version of adult Garanimals - black, black and then some more black. These black on black ensembles are easy to throw together without being all matchy, matchy. Or at least that's what I like to tell myself. Read More... Posted Nov 19 2009, 11:51 PM by kgranju with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Working Mothers, University of Tennessee, TNJN

• When working moms go berserk

  As I have mentioned, I have been working A LOT lately. The reason I am working a lot is a good one; the area of business that I oversee for our agency is booming. That's fantastic and it's especially fantastic given the fact that the economy is not booming. I am trying to take full advantage of the opportunities that are happening for the agency and for me right now, and that has meant a lot of hours in the past six months.   I have been looking for a new mother's helper to handle afternoon duties (school pick up, tumbling lessons, lacrosse practice, etc) for a while - and I finally found a wonderful person (YAY!) last week. But week before last, I still had no help. So that means E had to stay in aftercare at his school several afternoons a week. And he HATES aftercare. He hates it. There is nothing specific he hates about it; it's just the idea of it.Most of his friends at school have mothers who do not work, or who work part time. Almost none of them seem to work the kind of demanding hours that my job entails. So he sees them go home right at 3:30 pm when their moms arrive in a line of gleaming minivans and SUVs to pick them up. But he has to stay in aftercare when he would really rather go home, like "all the other kids." But such is life. I explain to him often that my job means we have a house and food, but right now, he only sees that my job means....aftercare. Read More... Posted Nov 16 2009, 10:20 PM by kgranju with | with 53 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Working Motherhood

• I love the "Terrible Twos"

  So lately, C has been an absolute joy to me. She's 27 months old, talking in complete sentences - which are generally hilarious - and she's increasingly engaging in real play with her toys. I love watching her "cook cook" at her play kitchen, or pretend that it's time for the Breyer horses (passed down from me and her previously horse-crazy older sister's collection are ready to go to sleep in their big wooden barn. She has this fantastically entertaining and ongoing conversation happening with her hands where she says things like, "It's okay hands! Pretty soon we'll be out of this carseat and we can play!"    Here is a video of C playing with her toy kitchen. Please ignore frightening animatronic monkey heads on the dining room table, next to Jon. Suffice it to say that E went through a phase about four years ago where he was obsessed with monkeys, and we now have all these wildly expensive yet creepy, lifelike elecronic monkeys that we are trying to figure out what to do with.   Read More... Posted Oct 22 2009, 09:50 AM by kgranju with | with 19 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju

• "The Opt-Out Revolution" Has Become "The Please, Please Let Me Opt-Back-In Recession"

  In yesterday's New York Times is a story about highly educated women who have been stay-at-home mothers, but who are now being forced by the recession - and specifically by their previously well-compensated husbands' downsizings and layoffs - to seek full time employment for the first time in many years. The story features several women who were able to find jobs in their fields (law, banking) relatively easily, even after as much as a decade away from their careers. It also features an interview with one longtime homemaker - a woman who previously had a successful legal career - who has been forced to start her climb back into the workforce with an unpaid internship at a law firm.   Ouch.   The story's tone is generally positive, tacitly assuming that most women who want to get a paying job can do so without too much trouble. The piece focuses more on the hardship of having to get a job at all, rather than on the more realistic hardship of being unable to get a job when one is needed, much less a well-compensated job in a super competitive field like law or finance. The story also references a much-discussed 2003 New York Times Magazine, Lisa Belkin-penned piece titled "The Opt-Out Revolution," which profiled a group of women in this exact same, rarified demographic who were "opting out" of the careers for which they had trained in order to be at-home wives and mothers.   When the "Opt-Out Revolution" piece came out, I was newly divorced after almost a decade of being a mostly at-home wife and mother myself. I was 34 years old, unemployed, a mother of three, and for all intents and purposes, I was completely penniless. The divorce ate up my share of whatever modest property and savings my ex and I had managed to  accumulate by that point in our lives, and I found myself starting over with literally nothing. I didn't even have a real bed - I slept on a futon on the floor for the next three three years. Family help sustained me until I was able to find a real job with benefits, which took several months, even in that very good economy.  Thank God, I had done quite a bit of home-office-based, high-profile freelance and contract work over the years, which made it possible for me to land that first job, because if my resume had been blank for the past almost-decade, I would have been in a world of hurt.  Read More... Posted Sep 19 2009, 07:22 PM by kgranju with | with 56 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Opting Out, LIsa Belkin, Opt-Out, New York Times

• My run-in with the naked baby police

  The other day, my sister left my one-year-old niece NC with me for a few hours to play with C, who is only a few weeks older. The baby cousins are best pals, and were very excited to have some playtime together, which had been hard to come by the previous week, since NC had the flu (not the Swine Flu, but a bad diagnosed case of Influenza B.) As it was a warm afternoon, I set up the baby pool in the front yard, stripped the girls down, slathered them with sunscreen, and proceeded to sit on the porch, watching the naked babies play in our small, fenced front yard. They had a blast, jumping in and out of the little pool, splashing each other, and running around the yard together.     Read More... Posted Apr 29 2009, 08:04 AM by kgranju with | with 65 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju

• Middle-schooler meets frog on trampoline; hilarity ensues

  I just have to share this one.   J found a frog over at her Dad's house. She invited the frog - whom she named "Gilbert" - to join her on the trampoline. Then things went awry.       SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG FOLLOW KATIE'S BLOGGING ON TWITTER OR FACEBOOK READ MORE OF KATIE'S BABBLE BLOGGING VISIT KATIE'S PERSONAL BLOG Posted Apr 14 2009, 10:32 AM by kgranju with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Video, Funny

• My big, fat life

  Lately, most of my posts have been focused on one topic, but today's will more closely mirror how our lives have looked during the past month: crazy busy with multiple things spinning in different directions. Lots going on as the school year winds down, and I prepare for my big job switch...   And about that job switch, I am so excited! Since last year, I have been working as a project manager with one of America's great newspaper companies. When I took the job, the focus was supposed to be on nurturing and growing innovative new media ideas from within the company. That would have been a great fit for me. But as it turns out - and perhaps you've heard? - the economy is tanking, and newspaper companies are under financial siege. So the groovy innovation project that I was hired to help run was closed down less than two months after I started the job. At that point, I was actually really afraid I was going to be laid off, as so many of my friends in media have been in the past year, but instead my fantastic boss found another PM position for me within the company - however, it was one that was much more technical in nature. I've enjoyed the job, and especially the people, but to be totally honest, it wasn't the very best fit for my skills or energies. However, I assumed I would continue in the position until the economy improved and other positions opened up within the company. I felt seriously grateful to have a job at all.  Read More... Posted Mar 31 2009, 01:24 PM by kgranju with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju

• There but by the grace of God, go I

  A month or two ago, my one year old was asleep on our bed, when I  - listening in the other room via baby monitor - heard a loud and definitive thump: baby head hits hardwood. I shrieked, and ran back to our bedroom, where C was sprawled on the floor. I scooped her up and put her back on the bed. She never even woke up, and she was fine. But I know the outcome could have been very different (I am thinking of Natasha Richardson here). And if she had been hurt, or God forbid, killed, I never would have forgiven myself for my negligence. Because if I had been following all the parenting rules as carefully as I should be, C shouldn't ever take a nap unattended on our bed. She should be in a newer-model crib, with little bedding - asleep on her back.   Read More... Posted Mar 27 2009, 12:20 PM by kgranju with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Parenting

• Blogging through divorce

  I, myself blogged all the way through my own divorce, my dating life after divorce (Which resulted in some of my very best friends. One of my post-divorce exes is even C's godfather!) , and I have obviously blogged a lot about the joy of my remarriage and our blended family. I started my personal blog before my divorce, so it was natural that I would keep writing as life handed me these new twists and turns. But more and more as time has passed, I've moved away from being specific at all about the issues that have come with the end of my marriage, or the relationship I have with my eldest children's dad. Why? Because my children are now older, and I like having them read my blog, and they don't need to see the specifics of this stuff out there for public consumption. I've pulled back considerably with each passing year in what I share on my blog about this particular topic.  I have learned -sometimes the hard way-  that specific blog venting never helps with the challenges (understatement) that come with co-parenting after divorce. I assure you that I could spill a bloggity soap opera on a nearly daily basis about this stuff, but that would feel really wrong to me.   So nowadays (and for several years now, actually), I keep 99.99% of the details of the co-parenting part of my life completely private, except for discussions with the people closest to me. And in hindsight, I regret some of what I did write during that first, painful period. I sometimes screwed up, I freely admit. Read More... Posted Mar 25 2009, 09:30 AM by kgranju with | with 18 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Divorce

• What makes a good sibling relationship?

  In the past few years, I've been thinking a lot about what factors matter in determining whether siblings are close, or not close. My sister and brother and I (as well as a couple of cousins who are pretty much like brothers to us) are all super close. That doesn't mean that we never fought while we were growing up - we certainly did (I am remembering one time when I literally tore a sweater off my sister's back while she was wearing it - at school!) - but we always had an underlying bond that was tangibly special. And today, we just like and enjoy each other. We're best friends. Sure, we bicker sometimes, but we have each others' backs, always. Nobody messes with one of us without the others stepping up. We're a team. A clan.   How did that happen? After all, I have many adult friends who barely tolerate their siblings, much less actually like them. Well, just as with much of the rest of how children turn out as adults, there are certainly mysterious and inexplicable factors at play in how sibling relationships eventually shape up. However, I've observed some general trends among the families I see where the kids seem to have a close bond, even when they are arguing or fighting with each other, and in which the siblings grow up to have close relationships. Read More... Posted Mar 12 2009, 12:42 PM by kgranju with | with 25 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Parenting, Siblings

• A better kind of coming out party

  People of every generation have a tendency to think that the "kids today" are worse in various ways than the kids of  their own childhoods. But the kids growing up today are a lot more tolerant and open minded than kids even 25 years ago, and that's a good thing. Tonight I had an amusing example of that.   We were driving past the local country club (still 99% white), and I suddenly recalled a debutante party I attended there when I was about 20 years old. Yes, when I was around that age, I had several friends who had "coming out" parties and dances, and I was a guest at some of them. As I was remembering that, it suddenly occurred to me that I never hear about debutante events or parties anymore, even though I have two teenage children growing up in the same southern, private school milieu in which I grew up. Read More... Posted Mar 02 2009, 07:02 AM by kgranju with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Parenting, GLBT

• Getting old, sans kids

  Recently, I had a conversation with an elderly man - a shut-in - who lost his wife not long ago. He told me about how much he missed her, and about the wonderful,  childfree life they had enjoyed when they were younger. They had traveled, and collected art, and had never regretted their decision to forego having kids. Never, that is.until they began experiencing the illnesses and injuries that generally come with growing old. As it turned out, his beloved wife ended up spending her final years bedridden, and he suffers from several serious ailments as well.   Today he is very much alone. His parents and siblings are gone, and most of his friends are dead or being cared for by family members themselves. He does receive occasional visits from members of the church to which he and his wife belonged, but mostly he spends his days watching television and - as he explained to me - second-guessing his decision not to become a parent. He said that he and his wife hadn't wanted to take on the responsibility of children; they were having too much fun. But when they became older, and needed help themselves, there was no one around to take on the responsibility for them.   Read More... Posted Feb 09 2009, 09:45 AM by kgranju with | with 38 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Parenting, childfree

• I'm becoming the nap nazi

  With my three older children, I was pretty loosey-goosey about naps and bedtimes. If they got naps, that was great. If they didn't, no biggie. Until they became school age, at which point I tightened up bedtimes, I tended to let them stay up in the evening until they actually acted sleepy, But when they were babies and toddlers, we had very flexible sleep routines - certainly nothing resembling a "schedule." That worked fine for them, and fine for me. With their one year old sister, however, we actually have a schedule and frankly, I am rather rigid about it.       Read More... Posted Jan 20 2009, 08:18 PM by kgranju with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Sleep, Toddler

• Church nursery dropout

  Although as a working mama, I spend 40 or more hours each week away from 17 month-old C, she has had zero exposure yet to non-family childcare. Her grandmother cares for her while I am working - either at my husband's office (a family business) or at her house, near ours. When we need babysitting so we can go on a date, or take the older kids to a non-baby-friendly activity, we are able to ask my sister to cover for us. C is very happy to stay with her grandmother or her Aunt Betsy. She happily waves goodbye to me when I leave her with either one of them. However, even though she is absolutely fine with these caregivers, my spidey-sense tells me she would be wildly unhappy if left with anyone else for longer than 15 minutes. But today at church, I decided to give it a test run; I decided to leave her in the nursery.     Read More... Posted Jan 18 2009, 07:00 PM by kgranju with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Toddlers

• Family party time

  We're having a bunch of people over for a very casual dinner party tonight, and as I was driving the kids to school today , I asked L - a friend's kid who rides with us each morning - whether his family would be coming. He said he thought they would, and then he added, "Why are you guys always having a party?" This made me laugh, as I would hardly describe us as "always having a party," but we do invite people over a lot, and we also throw at least two really big parties each year. And I guess that compared to some families, that's a lot.   I come by my love of party-throwing from my mother and grandmother, both of whom were always up for hosting a shindig when I was growing up. Some of my grandmother's parties were very fancy affairs, including the formal dinner dance for 25 that she threw at her house for my 16th birthday. My mother's gatherings tended to involve big pots of chili, friends playing guitar on the front porch, and many small children running around the yard. But both of them gave me some important lessons in party-ology. Read More... Posted Jan 16 2009, 02:11 PM by kgranju with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Parenting

• I am the mother of a teenage girl

  Everyone told me that raising a teenage girl was going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. Well, all I can go on is my own experience, and here's what I can tell you: raising the teenage BOY has been the hardest thing I've ever done, while my teenage girl has made my job pretty easy so far.   Me with my girls.   Read More... Posted Jan 13 2009, 08:36 AM by kgranju with | with 13 comment(s) Filed under: Teenagers, Katie Allison Granju

• A portrait of the toddler as a 17 month old

  C is 17 months old now, and her development in just about every area is accelerating at an unbelievable pace. For starters, she talks...and talks...and talks! She says dozens and dozens of words quite clearly, and is putting words together in 2-4 word sentences. She also picks words up very easily. People comment regularly on what a prolific and advanced talker she is.     One of the cutest thing she does is talk and sing to herself all the time. Right now I can hear her across the room, playing with some toys and just chattering away. Read More... Posted Jan 11 2009, 09:06 AM by kgranju with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Toddler

• Crazy clomidians

  I try not to judge other people's family-building choices, as long as they love their kids and can take care of them. Gay, straight, married, divorced, big families, small families, IVF or IUI, bio-children or adopted....  These choices belong to the competent adults making them. I also believe that the decision as to whether, when and how many children a woman has should belong to her, not to me, or to you. Reproductive freedom is among the most fundamental of human rights.   So why am I struggling so hard to wrap my head around the apparently large number - judging from discussion on the interwebs - of perfectly fertile women who are taking fertility drugs - often unprescribed -  for the sole purpose of increasing their chances of achieving twins, triplets or even quads?   Read More... Posted Jan 08 2009, 02:04 PM by kgranju with | with 26 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Pregnancy, inertility, clomid, multiples

• The birthday boy

  January 3 marked E's 11th birthday, and as is our custom, we celebrated with a ridiculously chaotic birthday sleepover for many, many little boys. We had a great time (although I was exhausted the next day), but despite the fun, E's birthday gets me a little weepy every year. That's because the day he was born was the scariest of my entire life.     E was born at 37 weeks after a relatively uneventful pregnancy, but only a few hours after he arrived, a sharp-eyed nurse's aide likely saved his life when she noticed that he was a little blue around the mouth and nose. A quick check confirmed that he wasn't getting a fraction of the oxygen he needed to survive, and within moments, he was whisked off to the critical care nursery.   It turned out that he had a very, very serious illness called pulmonary hypertension of the newborn. Over the next two weeks, there were several points where the neonatologist told E's father and me that our sweet baby might not make it through the night. To make things even more complicated, our 28-month-old daughter came down with a raging case of chicken pox (which she called "chicken pops") at exactly the same time. Thankfully, we had tremendous help from family and friends during that terrible first month after E was born, because otherwise we couldn't have made it. I will never forget the care and love so many people showed us. So every year, on E's birthday, I say a little prayer of thanks for my younger son, and I remember what it was like to live through that hellish experience. It's those sorts of intense parenting crucibles that turn you into your children's real mother, I think.   Speaking of hellish experiences, here is a photo essay from the weekend's birthday sleepover.   I kid! I kid! It was actually a lot of fun, and I couldn't ask for a nicer group of kids. The only snafu came when I somehow got the idea that the Mel Brooks movie "Spaceballs" would be an appropriate movie pick for the young birthday revelers (I had never seen it myself). Read More... Posted Jan 05 2009, 12:05 PM by kgranju with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, NICU, Birthday

• Genes, chance, and the Halle Berry Phenomenon

  Have you ever seen a photo of Halle Berry with her mother? Her mom is a perfectly attractive 60-something woman, who was likely even more attractive in her youth. She's just fine looking. She looks like someone you or I might know in real life - maybe as your favorite nurse at your doctor's office, or your child's sweet second grade teacher.   Then there is Halle Berry, arguably the most physically beautiful female human on the planet.   Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 08:32 AM by kgranju with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Halle Berry

• My kid has one foot out the door already

  An update on eldest child: I am happy to report that H's recent change to the private hippie "unchooling" high school seems to have been 100% positive for him. For the first time since I can remember, he seems excited about being at school, and self-motivated (as opposed to me standing over his bed each morning, hollering at him to get out the door to school) to get where he needs to be each day, and to participate in what is going on at the school. Two of his friends transferred from his old school to the new school at the same time he did, so he immediately had friends there, and he's made new ones as well. He just seems generally much happier than he has been for a long time.     The school is definitely very unconventional. Although he has actual classes, he also has tremendous freedom there to take his interests wherever he wants to go.He doesn't have real homework, and right now, his primary school interest is sound mixing - - you know, like music engineering, using actual instruments, as well as messing around with looping and mixing software on the computer. He has asked for DJ equipment for Christmas, and he says he'd like to eventually start spinning at parties. Read More... Posted Dec 11 2008, 07:47 AM by kgranju with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: Teenagers, Katie Allison Granju

• The Christmas card photo sessions

  Each December, I force my children to assemble for the annual agony known as the taking of the Christmas card photo. The picture rarely turns out well, with one child or another looking sullen and pissy, or someone's hair all mussy, or the camera out of focus.    Here are a few favorites from years past:   Below you have our 2007 Christmas card photo, in which E looks like a deranged monkey, and my postpartum, Pamela Anderson-sized breasts look like they are about to explode (which they likely were, as C was only a few months old at that point). But this was the best shot we got, after a torturous hour of my sister attempting to get a good pose out of all of us, so this is what Christmas card recipients received last year.     Read More... Posted Dec 09 2008, 07:59 AM by kgranju with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Christmas

• Who are the people in your neighborhood?

  I am 41 years old, and I have lived on my own - away from my parents' home - since I was 17. During all those all those years,as I lived in lots of different dorms, apartments, and finally, houses, it was my my parents' house and neighborhood that continued to feel more like home to me than any other place I inhabited. Everywhere else I alighted, including the suburban rancher I owned and lived in with my first husband for more than seven years felt strangely...temporary.   Don't get me wrong, I had many wonderful times in that sweet 1950s rancher, and I grew to love several of my neighbors there very much. I cried the day I had to move out. And even some of the houses and  apartments I inhabited for much briefer periods over the years were special to me in different ways. But none of them really felt like home in the same way my parents' house and 'hood did. I sometimes wondered whether there was something wrong with me - a lingering immaturity, perhaps, that made me unable to completely cut ties with my family of origin, even as I raised my own children.   But 2.5 years ago, my husband Jon and I bought our first house together, and from the first moment I walked in the door as a potential buyer, the place felt like it really could be my real, permanent home. Today, it simply is home. I feel as firmly rooted in this house as I once did in my parents' abode.   Read More... Posted Nov 24 2008, 11:11 AM by kgranju with | with 18 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju

• A few o' my favorite parenting blogs

  People pretty frequently ask me what parenting blogs I myself read regularly, so I've decided to start a semi-regular feature here at Home/Work in which I share my own bookmarked parenting blogs.    Thus, I present to you this premiere edition of "A Few of KAG's Favorite Parenting Bloggers." Share your own favorites in the comments below, because I'd love to discover some new blog reads now that the election is over and I no longer have to check Real Clear Politics obsessively.   I hope you enjoy these writers as much as I do.  500 Jerk: a wryly hilarious, partner-track lawyer-mama on everyday work and home life with two kids. StrollerDerby: Yep, it's from Babble, and it's a must-read round-up of all-things-parenthood in the blogosphere each day. Domestic Psychology: Funny, funny, funny. True, true, true. This Bumpy Journey: a family waits to adopt, and remembers the little boy they lost Sweet Salty: the most literary of mama blogs. This is some seriously good writing from an immensely gifted essayist. Somebody give this woman a book deal. Yestertime: this is an old college pal of my husband's whose mothering blog I just discovered. Sweet and self deprecating.  Martinimade: a little bit of everything from my ubercrafty writermama friend, Adrienne. The Vol Abroad: a smart expat mama living in London ReadingWhileKnitting: my friend S. manages to homeschool her large brood of children and makes it all look super fun. Unfit Mother: Outspoken feminist mama, and an old friend from college days  MamaTried: Another old college pal, now adjusting to life in the 'burbs with two baby grrls This Woman's Work: Adoption, parenting, infertility, freelance writing - not necessarily in that order Bee Lavender: Hip Mama, cancer survivor, writer, blogger Jonathan Hickman: Crazy-hot father and stepfather. I read his blog just so I can look at the occasional photo of himself that he posts. His wife is awfully lucky.  These are but a few of my faves. I will revisit this subject periodically, and add more to my list. And in the meantime, please really do post your own favorites in the comments below.   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG FOLLOW KATIE'S BLOGGING ON TWITTER OR FACEBOOK READ MORE OF KATIE'S BLOGGING Posted Nov 18 2008, 05:28 PM by kgranju with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Blogging

• Baby's getting off the fuss bus

  C. is 15 months old now, and she is emerging from my least favorite stage of early childhood - late infancy - into one of my favorites - toddlerhood. With all four of my children, I have found the stage between about 6-13 months to be the most frustrating period for me as a mother, and for them as wee humans. At that stage, they remained sort of crabby much of the time because they couldn't really DO much of anything, despite an increasing awareness that the world offers many interesting things to do. They could pull up, or crawl, but what they really wanted to do was run around and play with their older siblings and cousins. And between about 6-15 months, my babies have all obviously had a lot to say, but have had trouble getting anyone to understand them clearly. It must be irritating beyond belief for them, which must be why all of mine have whined quite a bit during the stage from which Miss C. is now happily emerging.   Charlotte (with her cousin Nancy Catherine) shedding angry tears at about seven months at the thought of being forced to endure the dreaded tummy time. She wanted so much to crawl, but could only flail her arms and kick her legs in hysterics at this point. She would scream if we put her on her tummy, and scream if we took her off her tummy. She just didn't know what she wanted.   Read More... Posted Nov 18 2008, 12:57 PM by kgranju with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, infancy, postpartum, Newborns, Babyhood