Washable Workwear Wednesday: Bea Merino Sweater Dress
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There’s nothing like a sweater dress to give you those warm work-from-home vibes when you’re sitting in a fluorescent-lit office.
This fit-and-flare merino wool sweater dress has a funnel neck and (surprise!) an open back that will take you straight from desk to dinner (consider adding a jacket for the desk part). I wouldn’t style it any differently than the photo — a pair of tall boots and a bold belt. This will be your go-to outfit throughout the winter.
The dress is available at Banana Republic.
Update: Unfortunately, this dress has sold out. Nordstrom has a couple of nice options; this Halogen dress is on sale for $53.40, and this Caslon dress is on sale for $55.30 and goes up to XXL.
Looking for other washable workwear? See all of our recent recommendations for washable clothes for work, or check out our roundup of the best brands for washable workwear.
Sales of note for 12.10
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Beauty deals on skincare (ends 12/14) including La Mer, Kate Somerville, Dior, Sunday Riley, Dyson, and gift sets — the deals include reader favorite lip balms Dior Addict, NARS Afterglow, and Clinique’s Black Honey, as well as Too Faced mascara and Sunday Riley’s Good Genes.
- Ann Taylor – 40% off your purchase, up to 50% off outerwear
- Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off all sale + extra 25% off 2+ items
- J.Crew – Up to 60% off everything, with 40% off their newest styles
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off everything + extra 25% off when you buy 3+ styles
- Macy’s – 15% off beauty, including Tarte, Clinique, Dior and gift sets
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off, plus free shipping on everything (and 20% off your first order)
- Talbots – 50% off everything + extra 25% off when you buy 3+ styles
Just saw the list of birthdays in my daughter’s Girl Scout troop. Made me giggle given the convo about redshirting yesterday. These kids are all happy, well adjusted 1st graders despite some being a full year apart.
8/18/2015
3/20/2016
5/23/2015
8/4/2016
10/13/2015
7/20/2016
7/30/2016
11/30/2015
8/26/2015
My cousin and her DH have 8 month old twins and seem to be drowning. They are low income, small house, and their parents are out of state and have no one else to help with childcare. I’ve tried to help as much as I can with helping her plan her baby registry, advice for newborn care, giving them our old baby clothes and gear, a few frozen meals before she delivered, and being there for her when she needs to vent. She has to ask their parents for money for formula, special swaddles, high chairs, etc. I want to do more but I live 90 miles away and have my own toddler, so can’t offer to babysit. I would give her or her sons a gift but she would feel the need to reciprocate. We are only three months apart and have always been close, but she has had some trauma and abuse as a child and our family has been awful to her, which is why I am being so extra. I am going to plan some play dates with her next year. Is there anything else I can do to help?
Do you have multiple sets of sheets for every bed in your house?
Also, what’s your favorite kid shampoo/body wash? I need something a step up from Johnson’s baby, but still tear free.
I’m a room parent this year and need gift ideas for my kid’s teacher. I need gift ideas for a woman in her early/mid 30s with a young toddler [with food allergies]. We have a pretty big budget for gifts, probably about $400-500, but only $100 can be spent on the teacher herself- the rest goes to classroom type stuff per the district rules.
So ladies in your early 30s with a toddler- hit me with what you’d like for the holidays. Obviously no booze and I can’t gift her childcare- though I would in a heartbeat because her kiddo has been sick all year long and she and her husband can’t catch a break. I’m thinking maybe a barefoot dreams blanket? I don’t know about a gift card to a nail salon or spa- that’s a maybe.
Is Mom Imposter Syndrome a thing? My maternity leave just ended and my childcare situation fell through at the last minute, so I have been WFH full time and taking care of baby full time. It’s working in the short term due to the flexible nature of my WFH job and the fact that she currently sleeps most of the day, but I know it’s not sustainable as she grows. I have a lot of help from family and its not as hard as it sounds but its not easy either. Regardless, I’m having trouble recognizing that I am doing a very hard thing and cutting myself some slack. It’s like I don’t think I’m a “Real” working mom, so I shouldn’t be struggling to keep my head above water this much. I keep telling myself that even under the best of circumstances being a new mom is hard for everyone, but my mind doesn’t really accept that as true.
Does anyone have a younger child who, despite getting 12 hours of sleep, still pulls the blanket over their head and says “I’m still tired! I don’t want to get up!” like a teenager would?
My 3.5 year old does this and I’m wondering at what point it’s time to talk with a doctor about it. This happens 3-4 mornings a week. Sleeps from 7:15-7:15 i a totally dark, cool room with a white noise machine. He wakes up at night maybe twice a month. Has a nap time at school but seems to not be sleeping very much during it. On weekends we either get no nap or a 3 hour nap. We don’t have much room on either end of the nighttime sleep to put him down earlier or wake him up later.
i have 4 year old twins in separate classes at the same school and so are often invited to separate bday parties (which is totally fine!). Twin A is invited to a bday party the weekend after DH is having a medical procedure and so I don’t know if he will be in good enough shape to take Twin A to the party or to stay home with Twin B. Is it inappropriate for me to ask the mom (who i don’t know particularly well) if I can bring the other twin (I would of course offer to pay)? it is at a gymnastics place where i know they can host very very large parties, so the numbers shouldn’t be an issue, but it is not the kind of place where I can just pay for my kid on my own because it is only open for parties. my kids are not at all ready for drop off playdates or parties, though i know others at the age are. thoughts?
Lots of pregnancy questions lately but here is another one! How much paternity leave would you want your spouse to take it he was WFH?
(Also, how am I going to get through maternity leave with my husband working from home??) I’m starting to see the appeal of a bigger house.
Any book recs for a toddler who is scared of the dark, unexpected sounds, having the door closed at night?
My son is a kindergartener – they have a holiday shopping event for the kiddos and they can bring money in to buy items. Was thinking of sending in $20 but not sure if that’s not enough. Family is Mom & Dad and toddler Sister plus grandparents, etc.
Also want to get gifts for the teacher and para professional in his class. Was thinking Target gift certificate for $25 each?
Thanks for any guidance.
Anyone have a great, easy but pretty, toddler Christmas ornament craft idea?
Toddler just turned 2. Last year we did 2×3 framed christmas tree “paintings” (I drew the outline of a green christmas tree and then she used her pointer finger and finger paint to make ornament dots).
My 3 year old got to play his grandparents’ piano over Thanksgiving and was super interested. He did a good job pressing one key at a time and being gentle, and he seemed fascinated by playing notes, and even more so when his uncle played him some songs. We should get him a piano, right? Should we go digital or regular (upright)? Any recommendations?
I’m sure I could find something on pinterest/google, but I don’t have the energy to search. Our beloved family dog passed away earlier this week. She was 10 and lived a good life. My kids don’t remember a time without her, and she was my steady companion through the divorce and working from home the last 2.5 years. We are all heartbroken. I feel like I’m trudging through mud just trying to get through the basics this week. I would like to do something with my kids to commemorate our giant fluffy dog (she was a Newfie). My kids are 9 and 11. Any recommendations?
Do any of you or your kids have “formal” or lesser-known classic names? My friend just named her newborn Alphonse and I never knew I liked it! I’ve always liked classic names (think Louisa, Catherine), but most of them are thoroughly “modern” by now and some are also getting very popular again. There’s nothing wrong with popularity, but I’d prefer to avoid having my kid be one of 4 of the same name in the same grade. I’m interested in finding a classic, lesser-used name that doesn’t fully cross the line into stuffy, especially since our last name is foreign and a bit grand sounding (not my actual last name, but think something like van der Woodsen – couldn’t think of a non-Gossip Girl example!!)). Please help me brainstorm!
I posted a couple weeks ago about a daycare teacher pulling my husband aside at pickup and telling him our 4 year old had been doing a bad job listening and following rules. We talked to our kid about it, but we were getting the vibe from the teachers that we were supposed to be doing more at home in terms of punishing (?) her. We have parent-teacher conferences pretty soon so we decided to discuss it with the teachers in more depth then. In hindsight, sickness was probably a factor in the behavior I posted about previously – DD was sent home from school the very next day with a fever that turned out to be a really nasty virus – although there were a handful of teacher comments that predated this illness, so it wasn’t just that.
Yesterday was her second day back at school after almost two weeks off for illness and the holiday, and at pickup the same teacher came up to me to talk about how terribly behaved my kid was that day. She said my kid is a bad influence on the other children and she spent most of the day yesterday alone because they couldn’t let her be around the other kids because she was encouraging them to behave badly. Some of the things she was describing definitely sounded bad (like my kid talking back to her), but some of them seemed a little nitpicky to me (like my kid was supposed to walk through the hall silently but she wasn’t being completely silent – is that really a reasonable expectation for a 4 yo?) But mainly I was caught off guard and I feel like it wasn’t the most productive way to have a discussion. It just felt like she was unloading on me about what a bad kid I have instead of engaging in a discussion. She also kept asking what was going on at home that would be causing this behavior, and seemed really unsatisfied when I said nothing out of the ordinary is going on at home and DD’s behavior at home hasn’t been especially bad (which is true).
I am not excusing my daughter’s behavior. Talking back to a teacher is not ok and following the rules is important. But I feel like there’s some kind of personality clash with the teacher that is making this worse? In our conversation, the teacher really wasn’t subtle about the fact that she thinks my kid is a bad apple, and I can’t imagine my kid isn’t also picking up on that. I realize school is different from playdates and extracurriculars but her activity teachers have raved about her behavior to us, and we’ve never had issues when she goes to playdates at other kids houses. I did ask her why she does a better job listening to activity teachers than school teachers and she said “because [activity] is fun and school is no fun.” We talked about how part of life is having to do unfun things and we still need to follow the rules even when something isn’t fun, but it makes me sad because she used to really love school.
I guess the next step is to have the parent teacher conference and go from there? Does anyone have any advice about how to approach the parent-teacher conference or how best to handle this with our daughter?