Splurge or Save Thursday: Woven Tote Bag
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Warmer weather means swapping my suede tote for a woven one. Here’s an office-friendly faux-leather version that won’t break the bank.
This simple woven tote has a roomy main compartment, magnetic closure, and shoulder straps. I’d add a small zippered clutch or purse organizer so you’re not digging for little things like chapstick or keys.
A New Day’s Woven Tote Bag is $40 at Target and comes in brown and cream.
Sales of note for 3/2:
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 30% off the Weekend Collection + extra 30% off sale + 30% off your purchase with extra 15% off $200+
- Banana Republic Factory – 40% off + extra 20% off
- Brooks Brothers – Up to 70% off clearance + 25% off select jewelry
- Express – 30%-70% off everything + $69 all Editor pants, jeans, and chinos
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + extra 70% off clearance + 40%-50% off the Weekend Shop
- Lo & Sons – End of winter sale, up to 50% off — reader favorites include this laptop tote, this backpack, and this crossbody
- M.M.LaFleur – Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Nordstrom – 4,000 new markdowns for women!
- Talbots – 25% off entire purchase
Any advice on explaining death to a 3.5 yo? I had to travel back home abruptly to visit my grandmother, who passed away yesterday. DH stayed home with DD, and told her mommy had to go to visit Great Grandma Sally who was sick and in the hospital. We have always made a big deal about how the doctors in the hospital make you better, and now I’m struggling with how to explain that Sally didn’t actually get better, but passed peacefully surrounded by her family. We aren’t particularly religious and I’m struggling with the script for this.
My husband has been visiting a colleague all week and staying at her house (they’re in academia, it’s not weird). He told me this morning that she and her young kids have a vomiting bug. I’m on a spring break trip with our kid who has also been sick though thankfully upper respiratory stuff not vomiting, and now I’ve caught our kid’s cold. We all meet at home tomorrow. Really hoping I don’t get walloped with a stomach bug on top of the current illness after solo parenting all week.
I have a four year old who is stubborn. My husband will enforce a rule when her when she’s being stubborn; I will enforce it when she’s being stubborn *and* she’s wrong about why she’s refusing.
An example might be – I ask her to put away her pens. She says that daddy said she can draw pumpkins with him when he gets home in an hour. I would back off the ask; my husband would say “okay, you can get them back out in an hour, but I asked you to clean them up.”
It’s such a small parenting difference, and I don’t think either of us are wrong, but I’m curious what others do. If it’s relevant, I’m a litigator, so I think I see value in her calmly being able to articulate a response, and my husband is married to a litigator, so he probably sees value in someone just listening without pushback, haha.
My kid (will be 5 in July) is becoming an increasingly picky eater, and I’m really struggling with food options. He keeps adding foods to the list of what he “doesn’t like”, and it’s really generic things like “pears” and “cheese”. It’s really hard to get him to eat any protein. He really only wants one particular type of white bread with butter. Last night he said he didn’t like the pasta with butter I made for him (in a desperate attempt to get something into him). He likes toaster waffles with butter. He used to eat yogurt but now says he doesn’t like it. He also says he now doesn’t like hot dogs. He didn’t like the chicken nuggets. So these are all super plain kid friendly options that he’s now rejecting, and I’m at my wits end on how to get some food into him.
No signs of neurodivergence and I don’t think it’s ARFID, but I also don’t know much about that. He gets lunch at school (vegan) and seems to eat OK there, so I thought maybe he’s just not that hungry in the evenings, but it’s a struggle to get him to eat on the weekends too.
He will sometimes eat mushrooms and zucchini sauted in butter, and hot smoked salmon, so those are on regular rotations (still, sometimes he just refuses). He used to like ground turkey with teriyaki but refused that last time. He refuses any kind of beans at home, although I think he eats them at school. What can I cook for him that has at least some protein and nutrients? Is this just a phase? Any advice welcome! I would love to avoid too much processed foods, but sometimes fish sticks is all he will eat. The good thing is that he likes raw veggies like cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, so I will often give him a plate of those for snacks, but he also needs protein which is a struggle.
The vacation thread was awesome! I’m looking for some tips/vacation recommendations on what to do for the third week of August when preschool is closed. We will have a 9 month old and 3.5 and 5.5 year old. We’re already doing Hilton Head in May and that feels manageable enough despite a long drive that we’ll do over two days each way. I’m stumped on August though. We live in the DC area.
Branching off the parent teacher conference comment below, what are folks various strategies for getting the most out of a parent teacher conference? I feel like I’m kind of bad at them in that I never know what to ask and so when teachers are like “they’re doing great” I’m just like “Cool time to wrap it up.”
A minor update for those who have been here for a while :)
I have posted over the years about my daughter’s sleeping habits, who was diagnosed with OCD a few years ago. Essentially, during COVID our family of 5 adopted some sleeping habits that made sense at the time (random Monday sleepover for the girls on our bedroom floor bc why not! what else are we doing?!), but that my daughter couldn’t shake after things returned to normal. She got so used to sleeping in the same room as other people that she legit had a physical reaction if she was asked to sleep in a room alone or on the first floor (where her bedroom in our tiny cape cod is located).
Anyway, last week, with no fuss or fanfare, she told me that she really wanted some of her own space, and asked to move back into her room on the first floor. She slept great the first night, and hasn’t looked back. I am, as crazy as it sounds, ridiculously proud of her. It is a HUGE deal, and something that seemed legitimately impossible only like two years ago.
A few notes –
– Pushing her out of her comfort zone incrementally was the right call. In other words, when everyone went back to their own rooms after COVID, we bunked her up with her youngest sister (age 5, who was THRILLED to have a big sister buddy in her room), not our oldest (her second preference) or us (her absolute and complete preference). So, she had the least preferred of her choices, but still had the comfort she needed with a sister buddy.
– I’m incredibly thankful we didn’t also force her to go back to her own room before she was ready, which is what some had advised here. She is so confident and happy in her room, and it would NOT have felt like a success nor would it be something she was proud of to just rip off the bandaid and force it. People got in my head a little bit about how not forcing it was going to mean she would never be able to fall asleep alone as an adult, she was old enough to do it cold turkey, we were setting her up to fail, etc. etc. I honestly think she’d have some longer term trauma (little “t” trauma here) with sleeping if we forced her two years ago. That said, I did take the advice to heart about being super mindful of not letting anything become too ingrained as a habit. With hindsight as a benefit, we were too far gone after COVID to fix the sleeping situation cold turkey, but now we just watch habits and try to mix things up more quickly so that they don’t become ingrained behaviors that feel “needed”.
More broadly, age 11 has been a blessing for her. She really seemed to struggle around age 8/9 with anxiety that was graduating into OCD, and both learning how to parent a kid with anxiety better and maturing has really, really helped her. Obviously we’ll keep our eye on it as she goes through puberty, but at least we all have excellent language and skills to help manage it.
Does such a school exist? I have a 2 year old and we’re starting to think about where we’d like to buy in the suburbs. I come from a family of educators, so I care a lot about education but I don’t want a pressure cooker school. I think learning for the sake of learning, curiosity and knowledge about the world around you, and being well-rounded are hugely important. I went to a private school that gave me a truly excellent education, but was also a total pressure cooker which I’d like to avoid.
I just want my kids to learn a lot, enjoy learning, and be exposed to critical thinking skills, the arts, world cultures. I’d prefer a district where the sports teams and arts groups and other clubs aren’t so competitive that if you don’t specialize early you’re SOL. One thing I loved about being in a smaller school was that even in high school you could dabble in tons of different activities – most sports were no cut JV/3rd team, sam with the plays and musical groups and clubs. But, I don’t want a district that’s so small the offerings are limited.
Does such a district or school even exist anymore? How do I evaluate school districts for this?
I’m in old work city and spent the morning snuggling my friend’s 7 week old. I can’t even imagine my now very tall 8 year old being that small. Old work city is the road not taken for me, and baby snuggles make me wistful so I’m sitting in a cafe with all the feels.
So, I did a thing and I’m trying to unpack why.
My aunt recently died and my dad let me know that the extended family is contributing to funeral expenses. My husband was out of town and I just Venmo’d my dad $250.
It felt weird not to talk about it with DH first, but i didn’t want to deal with the inevitable conversation about my aunt and her (adult, fully employed) kids not being able to pay for the funeral. They have always been….lets just say bad with money and happy to take handouts. DH and I have been married for 20 years, and the convo would be a long drawn out series of (very valid) complaints about these relatives with DH eventually being fine sending money. I just….dont have the mental energy to do the dance.
FWIW, we are well off. Money is not an issue. I’d have otherwise sent them an expensive flower arrangement for the funeral (and not really asked doh other than “just fyi I did or am doing this”). We’ve had a lot of family deaths recently and when his great aunt died, I sent flowers and let him know.
So, thoughts? Is this the sort of thing I should talk to him about even though it’s not a financial big deal and also I don’t want to deal with the drama of it?
FWIW if it were more like $1k, it would have been a convo.
yesterday someone mentioned a great trip to the Smoky Mountains – would love to hear more about what you did, where you stayed, etc.
It’s parent teacher conference time in my area and a lot of people are taking them virtually from the office. It’s so funny to hear the difference in everyone’s approaches.
Though, as the daughter and sister of a teacher I have to keep my mouth shut because my one work friend keeps complaining about the teachers after each conference! I’m close to snapping back.