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Angelina Jolie has tattoos allegedly bearing the coordinates of her children’s birthplaces — I’ve always thought that was a nice idea. This lovely pendant necklace from BaubleBar is a great way to honor some coordinates as well … but without the commitment to ink. It’s $38. (The $72 version can be engraved with any coordinates; this necklace gives you a choice of nine cities.) BaubleBar Engraved Coordinates Bar Pendant
(L-3)
Sales of note for 9.10.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 30% off your purchase
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; up to 50% off everything else
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off wear-to-work styles; extra 30% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40-60% off everything; extra 60% off clearance
- Lands’ End – 30% off full-price styles
- Loft – Extra 40% off sale styles
- Talbots – BOGO 50% everything, includes markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- Zappos – 26,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Birthday sale, 40-50% off & extra 20% off select styles
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all baby; up to 40% off all Halloween
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Extra 30% off sale styles
- Old Navy – 40% off everything
- Target – BOGO 25% off select haircare, up to 25% off floor care items; up to 30% off indoor furniture up to 20% off TVs
See some of our latest articles on CorporetteMoms:
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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?
Jax says
Question: How much are you willing to spend on your kid’s activities? In terms of both time and money?
I have my 9 year old signed up for dance classes ($150 per month, multiple evenings per week and Saturday) and my youngest in dance and soccer ($80 per season + equipment). Summer camps this year just about killed me, and I’m facing the new school year feeling resentful. I love my girls and I want to give them lots of opportunities, but I’m burned out by the schedule and the bills. Is this just part of being a parent and I need to suck it up?
mascot says
Probably more inclined to spend money than give extra time. Our school offers after-school on campus activities (sports, chess, enrichment classes) that we sign up for. Our child would be in after school care anyways so its no big deal to let him do something during that time. We are just starting activities outside of school this fall and I think we will limit him to one at a time. This season will be soccer ($90 +uniforms) and it’s one night a week plus Saturday games. It’s hard enough with one kid, scheduling two would be rough.
EP-er says
We agreed to limit to one sport+one brain activity activity at a time, just because we don’t want our kids to be overscheduled and not have any unstructured time. And we don’t want out lives to devolve into taxi service! Right now this translates into piano lessons ($80/month) and swim lessons ($75/month) for my son and swim lessons ($75/month) for my daughter. We are considering enrolling her in dance class once a week in the fall, but that is only $30/month and during day-care hours. We do let them each pick a special summer camp to attend. This year was Dance Camp ($100/ half-days for a week) and robot camp ($300/week). At this point, I’m not willing to commit to “travel” level sports, where there are 3 practices/week + weekend games — it seems so time consuming, especially since my husband works longer hours and isn’t always available to help with transportation.
Meg Murry says
LCOL area, but right now my son does 2 activities – piano and karate, that each cost $10 a week, and meet 1-2 times a week. We’ve also done swimming lessons in the past that cost $10-$15 a session.
What I am not willing to do is sign my kids up for activities that take tons of my time, like soccer or baseball with practices and/or games multiple nights a week and requiring driving all over for the games. If my kids really really wanted to do one of these sports, I might consider it, but I’m not signing them up for it if they aren’t the ones asking to do it. For me it’s not about the money, it’s about the time commitment, and especially my opinion that no 5 year old kid needs to drive to another town 40 minutes away to play a T-ball game. I’m not judging anyone that chooses to do that, but it’s absolutely not the right decision for my family. I suspect, however, that my younger son is going to be far more into organized team sports, and I’m ok with that if he’s enthusiastic and really wants to do it – but I’m not jumping through all those hoops for a kid who is “meh” about it at best.
Basically, I”m not willing to let my limited free time be ruled by my kids extra curriculars – because its way more about time than money at this point.
Butter says
I feel inordinately strongly about this for not having a horse in the race yet (but one on the way). I can’t believe the prevalence of travel sports with high fees and enormous time commitments in my area. Maybe this is now the case everywhere, but it wasn’t this way when and where I grew up. Most of the parents of school-age children I know spend their entire weekends shuttling kids to games, with different sports going on year-round. To me it’s a matter of both time and money – for our family, I know that both of those will be limited, and as a result I want to be really purposeful about how we spend both. I’d rather put the money towards travel and the time towards hanging out as a family. But I know that this could all change, so I guess it’s with a grain of salt.
Meg Murry says
The craziest part is that the 40 minutes away game isn’t even the travel team – we just live in an area that is that spread out, and the T-ball league does the same travel schedule as the main baseball/softball teams because the coaches were a little crazy. We have friends (ok, friendly acquaintances) who have their 8 year old in a travel soccer league, and drive an hour away multiple times a week for practice, not to mention games that are 2, 3 or even 4 hours away or tournaments in other states that are all weekend or even longer.
Luckily, there are a few activities, like “instructional soccer” for 4 and 5 year olds that is just at the local field for an hour or two on Saturday mornings that involve no travel and no real commitment – that’s where I will start with my youngest. But I’m saying no right now to travel leagues, especially in elementary school.
Pigpen's Mama says
My LO is just about to turn 1 and the only ‘activity’ we have for her is swim lessons once a week — they are expensive (~$100 a month) and a haul from our house, BUT, they are year round, she enjoys them, and we’re all in a better mood afterwards. It’s also one of the few activities I found that fit in our schedule, since both DH and I work a normal schedule and still leaves our weekends mostly free.
When she’s older, I’d like to limit her to three activities at a time — that was the general rule for me when growing up. And I like the idea of having them be in certain categories, like EP-er.
For those of you with older kids, how did they/you decide on activities, and how long did you make them stick with something to see if they would like it? I can see this being an issue with team sports and musical instruments in particular.
Lyssa says
Note to Kat – this would be a really good post topic!
We’re doing Little Gym for my 2.5 yr old now, but this stuff scares me since he’s coming up on the age when it gets started. I do not want to spend every Saturday going to games and struggling to get to practices throughout the week, nor do I want to spend the money. But my parents, even with 4 of us and with us constantly struggling financially, did always make sure that we were involved in a lot of different activities, and I’m grateful for that. So , I don’t know.
FVNC says
I’m conflicted too. I grew up playing a competitive sport that I continued to play in college on scholarship. My parents spent a huge amount of time and money to allow me to do this, to the point where their finances were strained a bit. But I loved it, and I think they loved that it made me so happy. They formed very close relationships with other parents, especially of my college teammates, with whom they still see/correspond with 10+ years after my graduation. I cannot imagine doing what they did for me given my and my husband’s work commitments, although I think that would change if my child was truly passionate about something (sports, music, etc.).
So far my almost 2 year old does no formal activities. I figure 45 hours / week at daycare is enough structure for now. Over the next year, I’d like to explore what’s available for her in our area, maybe swim lessons.
Babyweight says
Our rule with our almost 5 year old is “pick two.” She gets to pick two activities outside of school.
We do convenient ballet lessons on Saturday morning. With some effort we found studio without a formal recital (no recital fees! no tickets! no outrageous costumes! no evening rehearsals!) Well worth the effort to find something that fit our style and pocketbook.
Time is way more important than money at this stage. My assistant spent every evening this spring and some of the summer at a ball field with her 5 year old — he even has a special batting coach. Travel sports are okay for some, but not a choice my family makes at this point anyway.
Jax says
The problem with dance is that the classes get longer and more varied as the kids get older. The 1 hour tap/ballet class for my Kindergartener is no big deal, but by age 8 it splits into:
1 hour ballet
1 hour tap
1 hour jazz
1 hour modern
1 hour ballet technique/pre-pointe
1 hour acro
Before you know it, you’re living at the studio. Throw in another activity (piano? soccer? swim team?) and life becomes miserable. I told my 9 year old that she’s had to narrow her dance down to what she loves (she picked ballet & modern) because I just can’t handle every night of the week shuttling her around. I work 50 hours per week–I just can’t spend my remaining hours of the day trying not to fall asleep in the studio lobby.
Babyweight says
Holy &*)&^! Okay, we’re going to be getting off the dance train soon, then. I have zero knowledge about dance.
Anonyc says
This is a hard question for me to separate from childcare, generally. I’m in NYC. My kids are signed up for several things afterschool and, for my oldest, on the weekends. Our elementary school has a full afterschool program (classes–chess, art options, sports/martial arts) and the cost is a bit more than $200 per class each session (which is maybe 3 months? I don’t fully grasp the time division). My kid will stay afterschool for these, or will go to religious class 1x/week (even more expensive), and I just signed up for a once a week program that is in the hood that is a special board game-oriented program. So I think that each semester (or elementary equivalent) costs us in total about $1400+, and these are pretty typical prices/options–you can certainly spend more if that’s your jam.
That is a lot cheaper than the FT daycare/preschool options that exist for my other kids–preschool here often runs only until 3, so the is an additional cost for aftercare until 6. This year my kid’s preschool is offering additional enrichment classes 2-3x per week that I’m signing up for, insofar as that seems more fun than bonking around an indoor gym (the usual aftercare option) and furthers an educational program she’s been in for a few years. Also: if you’re paying for aftercare already, I’d rather pay a bit more and have her learning a foreign language.
As for weekend commitments: it’s super-hard for those not to creep in, I’ve found, despite my hope to remain chill on the weekends (and my naive thought that being in the city would protect us a bit from the crazy-suburban activity wheel of travel sports, etc. that I remember from my own childhood). Right now we have two sports activities for my oldest (karate and soccer) that only take place on the weekend; the soccer league in particular is a dominant force in our nabe so it feels like everyone does it for kids this age (early elementary). Also: my kid loves it. And, as FT working parents, some activities–swim lessons–require parent involvement/presence, and that therefore requires weekend involvement.
tl;dr–we spend a lot on activities, but find it preferable to spending a lot on less-stimulating care, and give up some of our weekends to it–though it’s mostly fun, once we coordinate logistics (3 kids, two parents, lots of planning).
Meg Murry says
Yes- I am looking for more activities that can be done as part of an after school programs, instead of evenings/weekends. I would be ok with those as long as they are too expensive. For instance, my son was exposed to a foreign language at one of his summer camps and really enjoyed it, so the counselors suggested we find him someone to have conversations in that language with 1-2 times a week. We live in an area with lots of colleges, so I’m hoping to find someone who is willing to meet with him at the public library for these conversations. Same thing with an art class – now that he could walk to the art program after school I am more likely to consider it. We also don’t really do play dates much anymore – my son’s best friend goes to the after school program with him 3 days a week, so that’s like a 2 hour play date right there, and is great for all of us.
ANP says
SUCH a timely topic for my family — we have a 5 year old daughter and are trying to balance her activity level against our budget and our son, who’s 2.5 and will likely be eligible for more extracurriculars soon. We’ve set a rule of no more than two activities/child (and because my daughter wasn’t super excited about it, I declined to sign her up for soccer because that alone was 2-3 times/week). Plus I want my kids to be able to jump around and try different stuff, and how do you balance that against wanting them to commit/give it the ol’ college try? GAH.
I think from a budget perspective, we’re comfortable with a weekly activity that costs $50/month or less. If it were more than that, I’d have to see some sort of major value-add (we’re in a relatively low COL area in the Midwest, if that helps). Right now our daughter has a weekly swim lesson (which I see not only as an activity but also an important life/survival skill) and she’s asked to sign up for gymnastics in the fall. In the past, she’s tried tumbling, ballet, t-ball and a week-long soccer camp, all to varying degrees of enjoyment.
Meg Murry says
And separate but related, how do you pay for all these activities – as in, what form of payment do you use? We had almost run out of checks and I was considering not ordering more since we never used them – but then here comes 5 different summer camps, and paying for piano and karate every month and now I have more checks to write. Do your programs take credit cards? Or are you having to drag around your checkbook just for these activities? As it was, our piano teacher originally said $10 per class, but she agreed that $40 a month made more sense (and she might actually come out slightly ahead since we do cancel from time to time).
NavyLawyer says
After 8 weeks off, I’m working daily PT teleworking. On few days I’ve has to go in, the getting really takes time and organization (pump, pack pump, nurse baby). So if I couldn’t telework, I would go in fewer days per week amd work an eight hour day.
Maternity Leave says
I am planning on taking 10 full weeks of maternity leave and then 2 weeks part time. Right now I am thinking 2 weeks of half days. Would I be better off with a different arrangement, such as 2 1/2 or 3 days for the last two weeks?
ANP says
I think this depends on your workflow and commute. I asked this exact same question here and on the main board last week; based on the feedback I received, I’m planning to go into the office two full days and one half day each week. I have the kind of job where the work is never done, and if I went in every day I just think it would be a huge freaking time-suck where I’d have a hard time leaving remotely on time. Plus the longer days will give me the opportunity (I hope) to get more substantive work done vs. just those quick bites of time on a half-day.
Maternity Leave says
Thanks! I saw your post and that was what actually made me question my plan. I live 5 minutes from home/daycare, so that isn’t a concern, but I hadn’t really thought of the not leaving on time issue. I would probably be dealing with the same thing. I am supposed to have regular hours, but often end up working past 5.
NavyLawyer says
After 8 weeks off, I’m working daily PT teleworking. On few days I’ve has to go in, the getting really takes time and organization (pump, pack pump, nurse baby). So if I couldn’t telework, I would go in fewer days per week amd work an eight hour day.
lulu says
Personal shoppers wanted! Having my first baby shower a little early at ~24 weeks because my sister is moving a few states away. It’s at 2 p.m. What should I wear?
Anonymous says
Something super comfortable!
Erin says
I actually keep a running list of my maternity finds on my blog: busygirlshopping.com/maternity
Not all of them are dresses or 2 p.m. appropriate but there are a few cuties!
Hope this helps! And congratulations to you! :)
lucy stone says
Everyone around me is having babies, so another gifting question:
My SIL just had a c-section and added another nephew to our family, yay! We are visiting in a few weeks for the baptism and will bring some meals then, but I’d like to send her some stuff to help with c-section recovery in the meantime. What products were helpful to you in recovery? Belly band? Scar cream?
Gator Girl says
A house cleaner. Seriously. I’m not sure how much you’re looking to spend, but a gift certificate to a cleaning service would be amazing. After my c-section, it was hard to get around the house. Add a baby and pure exhaustion, that really left no time to get anything done around the house.
Jdubs says
I have been sending a little care package to friends after they have a baby … I try to include things like packaged snacks she can grab easily, a large water bottle with a straw that can be used on the couch or in bed when nursing, a box of mother’s milk tea, face wipes, cute hair ties, or even a really cute pair of nursing PJs. Everyone always sends stuff for the baby so I think its fun to send a package for the Mom :-)