Family Friday: 3-in-1 Sports Zone
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My youngest loves balls so this 3-in-1 Sports Zone from Little Tykes is a favorite!
This sports toy features basketball, bowling, and soccer. It plays 75 songs, sounds, and phrases (although just leave the batteries out if you prefer silence) and has an adjustable hoop that grows with your child.
Best of all, it folds up for easy storage — we keep ours in a dead space right next to the couch.
The 3-in-1 Sports Zone is $39.99 on Amazon.
Sales of note for 1/16:
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
- AllSaints – now up to 60% off (some of the best leather jackets!)
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles with code — readers love this blazer, these dresses, and their double-layer line of tees
- DeMellier – Sale now on, free shipping and returns — includes select options like Montreal, Vancouver, and Venice
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; extra 50% off all clearance, plus ELOQUII X kate spade new york collab just dropped
- Everlane – Sale of the year, up to 70% off — reader favorites include their scoop tee, Dream Pant, ReNew Transit backpack, silk blouses and oversized blazers! New markdowns just added
- Hannah Andersson – Up to 30% off all pajamas;
- J.Crew – Up to 40% off select styles; up to 50% off cashmere
- J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything
- L.K. Bennett – Archive sale, almost everything 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Tag sale for a limited time — jardigans and dresses $200, pants $150, tops $95, T-shirts $50
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale – 50% off + extra 20% off, sale on sale, plus free shipping on $150+
And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- The concept of “backup care” is so stupid…
- I need tips on managing employees in BigLaw who have to leave for daycare pickup…
- I’m thinking of leaning out to spend more time with my family – how can I find the perfect job for that?
- I’m now a SAHM and my husband needs to step up…
- How can I change my thinking to better recognize some of my husband’s contributions as important, like organizing the shed?
- What are your tips to having a good weekend with kids, especially with little kids? Do you have a set routine or plan?
Earlier this week, a poster was looking for masks for kids. I just got a notification that maskc has new inventory for KN95 masks, including those for children. I haven’t tried the kids ones myself, but I like the fit of the adult ones, which have also been restocked.
Did you do any camps for your rising kindergartners? Daycare school year goes through late July and public school starts early August (two week gap) so we don’t really need childcare in between. We’re doing a family vacation the first week, and we’ll likely cover the second week by taking a vacation day or two each and calling in grandparents, so she can have a relaxing week at home before school starts. I know the K transition can be rough, so I don’t want to overschedule the week before school. But I’m getting FOMO seeing all these cool camps she’s eligible for this year. Part of it is probably Covid – we’ve missed so much over the last two years and she won’t be vaccinated until spring, so it feels like this summer is our first chance at getting something resembling normal life back. Worth pulling her out of daycare for a week or two in June/July to do camps? Or is that crazy? We’re in the fortunate position that cost is not the driving force here. I won’t sign her up for anything without her approval, but I thought I’d ask for thoughts here first because I expect she’ll agree to any activity I propose right now. As a friend joked the other day, even a vacation to Siberia sounds appealing at this point.
I know it’s late in the day, but does anyone have any tips for dropping the bedtime bottle? My 16 mo old didn’t resist dropping other bottles and happily drinks milk from a straw cup the rest of the day. I know the answer is probably just to switch cold turkey and deal with a few nights of meltdowns, but that seems impossible right now while trying to work with a quarantining toddler. If there’s a way that might preserve whatever shreds of sanity I have left by evening, I’d love to hear it.
I posted yesterday about my 5yo (vaccinated) kid with a fever/headache and exposure to Covid last week. Both he and his brother’s PCR tests came back negative. Since my older has symptoms, we did a follow up rapid (also negative).
This all makes me want to quit my job and take up learning about disease spread. This reminds me of 2020. When we’d all been home and seen no one for 7-10 days, a few of us got a stomach bug.
Does anyone else have kids who seem totally uninterested in building things? We have Magnatiles, Lincoln Logs, regular blocks, Legos…and neither my 6yo nor my 4yo ever want to play with them. Pretty much all they play is various complicated games of pretend, usually using random things around the house (animal hospital, school, spy, superhero, kitten, etc). Which is great and I love that they have active imaginations but I keep reading about kids being engrossed for hours with Magnatiles and it’s a miracle if mine play with them for five minutes. Is this just what happens when you have two kids close in age — they inevitably gravitate towards playing with each other instead of doing solo play?
Just had to share — I switched careers from teaching to actuarial consulting 6 years ago. I took all of my exams while pregnant or being a mom, and started from an entry level job at a consulting firm and worked up to associate director, and today — pregnant with my third kid, and in one of the busiest seasons of my life — I found out I passed the last exam that will make me a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries. Am just so, so freaking proud. It takes a supportive spouse and patient kids and helpful grandparents but it was so much work — and I did it. I freaking did it. Happy Friday, everyone, I’m sobbing with happiness.
I thought this article on parenting in a feminist commune was really interesting. I’ve personally thought a lot about how parenting should be more community oriented, but I’m not sure I would be happier in a feminist commune. But maybe I would be. Because at this moment being a working American mother feels like hell.
https://www.thecut.com/2022/01/parenting-twin-oaks-commune-family-abolition.html
Wanted to post a story/start a thread for moms of 2e/special needs children. I’m a regular poster anonymous for this for additional prviacy for my child. We had him evaluated for learning issues at 8 and he was diagnosed with ADHD, inattentive sub-type & sensory processing issues. We’re also about to start CBT for a feeding issue. Navigating diagnoses/therapy/OT/school supports is a LOT. Thankfully my husband is involved (the therapist/doctors are all pleasantly surprised there, apparently a lot of dads resist diagnosis/labels and refuse to seek or attend therapy) but I still drive the logistics as we’re covered under my insurance.
Happy to answer any questions about this process and talk about what’s been helpful – ADDitude magazine, ADHD tiktok, our therapist’s newsletters, and the ‘your spirited child’ books were all really helpful in reframing how I approached a lot of our parenting struggles. I also (and this is painful but for the best) simply cannot/will not discuss this with our families – both sets of parents are against ‘labeling’ our child and feel we’re ‘pushing’ this on him and ‘just not tough enough’.
Moms, help! Our 3yo has been waking up between 5-5:30 for about a month now, even when he doesn’t nap. He goes to sleep between 7:30-8:15 and usually naps at daycare (this week), though didn’t nap at home for most of extended winter break, so that part doesn’t seem to make a difference. When he wakes up, he HOLLERS, and is ready to go for the day. He always has to use the bathroom, often #2. He sleeps in a pull up but it is usually dry, and he doesn’t want to use it, he wants to use the potty, which I feel like I can’t argue with. I feel like at this point, his internal clock and his #2 clock are set at 5am and my husband and I are sleep deprived and desperate to change this. Prior to this, he would sleep till 6:30-7:15. He also wakes up his 5 yo brother in the next room if I let him yell for us more than once, and his brother really needs the sleep (plus having 2 up is worse than 1) so I try very hard not to let that happen.
Help!! How can I train him/his body to sleep longer and not have to poop at 5am? I always say everything is a phase but this feels long.
He is also a generally insane/spirited 3 year old, who doesn’t really want to “chill” after we get up.
What are your favorite parenting books that you actually found helpful?
It’s a sad life where I feel grateful that I’ve had childcare (that I pay $$$ for at least for daycare) for the full week. I know I’m jinxing myself here.
A question for those who’ve had Covid run in the household: If one of you or spouse tests positive (assume everyone else is negative for now), have you then had that person isolate from the rest of the family or do you just continue joint parenting? It’s a little tricky because with school kids at least, they can go back to school as long as they don’t test positive so there’s some incentive to not spread it but on the other hand, solo parenting is… not fun, to say the least. We’re not in this situation yet but just thinking ahead.
Just sending a friendly wave to the poster from the small town where she was a news anchor previously: I think we live in the same campus town in the cornfields. Boiler Up?!
And if you haven’t seen it, here is again the link to Kayla Sullivan’s parenting reports: https://www.today.com/parents/cute/mom-uses-tv-journalist-voice-tiktok-report-sons-tantrum-rcna11400