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The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is on, ladies! You need a Nordstrom card to get early access (it opens to the general public on July 17), but: for those of you unfamiliar with it, this is their big sale of the year where next season’s merchandise is marked down now. Prices will go back up on August 3. Lots of great things in the sale (keep an eye on Corporette for a full roundup of workwear; I already chose some quick picks this morning); for moms I like this soft, hand-washable shawl collar blazer from Caslon. If you’re pregnant you should be able to wear this up to the very end of your pregnancy, if not all the way to the end, and because it’s a knit fabric it should fit you even if you’re still gaining or losing weight postpartum as well. I like this beautiful dark purple, but it’s available in eight other colors, in regular and petite sizes. It’s currently marked to $39.90; after the sale ends on August 3 the price will go back up to $58. Caslon Shawl Collar Knit Blazer Ladies, what are your favorite things to get at the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale? Lots of diaper bags, kids’ stuff, maternity gear, and more on sale! (L-all)Sales of note for 3.28.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything plus extra 20% off purchase
- Eloquii – 50% off 2+ items; 40% off 1
- J.Crew – 50% off select styles
- Lands’ End – 10% off your order
- Loft – 50% off everything
- Nordstrom: Give $150 in gift cards, earn a $25 promo card (ends 3/31)
- Talbots – 40% off 1 item; 25% off everything else
- Zappos – 37,000+ 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 – 50% off entire site
- Hanna Andersson – 30% off all swim; up to 30% off HannaJams
- J.Crew Crewcuts – 40% off sitewide; 50% off select swim; 50% off kids’ styles
- Old Navy – 50% off Easter deals
- Target – 20% off Easter styles for all; up to 30% off kitchen & dining; BOGO 50% off shoes & slippers for the family;
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!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
Msj says
So my kids are starting daycare in September. So very many questions, but will start with this one. We are lucky that it is a place that provides food (including milk) but if we want organic we have to bring it ourselves. Dairy is something I have typically splurged on and as it makes up a large portion of their diet I’d prefer to keep it high quality. I’m less fussy about lunch simply because I don’t have the time to deal with it. I’m curious if others have brought their own food in cases like this and where in general others draw the line between conventional and organic food. I try to eat clean in general but am not overly fanatical. I tend to buy higher quality meat and eggs and yogurt but go the conventional route with most fruits and vegetables unless on sale.
mascot says
We don’t buy organic milk, but we do buy milk/dairy products that are rBST/rBGH free. Most produce and meat comes from the farmers market (not always certified organic, but local and minimally treated). I’d say we try to eat responsibly/thoughtfully at home and when we can in restaurants (I’m picky about seafood particularly). But, we don’t stress too much when we indulge in the occasional meal of hot wings. We are lucky that our school lunches are handled by a great green certified caterer. Daycare’s quality wasn’t as good. That being said, we’ve always had our child eat the school prepared lunches. I think he’s got a better palate for it and is more likely to try a new dish when he sees all of his classmates eating it. I also feel like its only 5 of his 21 meals in a week. Besides, I hate packing lunches. Summer day camp is killing me and he’s (happily) eating way too much PB&J because I am not very creative about cold lunches.
layered bob says
I grew up on a dairy farm. More than 80% of milk produced in the U.S. now claims to be rBST/rBGH free – supposedly. But it is impossible to test for so you are relying on the producer’s word. In most states there is no inspection/follow-up. I wouldn’t pay more for milk labeled rBST/rBGH free – but I would (and do) pay more for local grassfed milk from a producer that you can visit or who is verified through another means.
mascot says
That’s a good point. There’s only one dairy that is near us and my family isn’t fond of their milk (It’s non-homogenized). We did the organic milk for a while, but it is pretty expensive. Hopefully our milk is coming from farmers who keep their pledge.
FVNC says
We provide organic milk for our toddler to drink at daycare. She drinks about a half gallon/week there, and another half gallon at home. It was important to my husband, so despite the higher cost we just pay it (and are fortunate to have the means to do so). Lots of kids have special milk at daycare — soy, organic, what have you. It’s absolutely no problem for my daycare to handle, and they’re not the most flexible place. We also provide lunch, but daycare provides snacks. I’m sure it’s mostly junk — sugary graham crackers, trail mix, etc. I don’t mind the “bad” snack food; at this point kiddo eats so little, I figure any calories she will consume are okay for her! Note – I find that preparing lunches is actually pretty easy, but that’s probably because it’s the same d@mn thing every day, since kiddo refuses to eat more than five things….all my efforts at being creative have been rejected.
Meg Murry says
I personally wouldn’t bother, but we’ve never prioritized organic milk. I can barely keep track of whether my kid has enough diapers or clean clothes in the right size at daycare or to return signed permission slips – I would have a hard time keeping track of whether they had milk at daycare unless it became routine to take it at specific intervals – either a small thermos daily or a gallon every Monday or whatever. And if your kids are in 2 different classrooms you probably have to send it separately for each kid to go into each classroom
And honestly, I have a hard time keeping up with whether we have bread, milk, eggs, juiceboxes (for the older one’s lunch) etc at home because our family’s consumption of all of the above is so fluctuating, so I wouldn’t add milk for daycare into the mix if I didn’t have to. But that’s just me.
Momata says
Kid drinks organic milk at home (yay, Costco!), but I don’t bother sending it to daycare. As previous commenters have said, there’s enough schlepping back and forth of diapers, wipes, extra clothes, sunscreen, remembering that Tuesday is water play day and Friday is “show and share” day – I drew the line at sending in milk. (And I have to provide lunch but not snack.)
ANP says
+1 to what Momata and Meg Murry are saying. Although I also pureed organic vegetables with my first child because I had significantly more time when there was just one little person to deal with — now that we’re on #3, these tendencies have relaxed significantly! So I would say you should do what you’re comfortable with but that for the small amount of time your kiddo is at daycare (in the overall scheme of life) this isn’t a make-or-break thing.
Carrie M says
There is a lot of schlepping, but we do bring organic milk to daycare for the reasons you identified. A lot of kids in her class have different milk. There’s enough room in the fridge that I can bring in a half gallon about every 8 days, instead of having to bring a smaller container for each day. I’d say try it for a while, and then if you decide it’s just too much (or no longer as important), then you can always go back to what the daycare provides.
We are moving and switching daycares in a few weeks and I’m not looking forward to having to provide lunch every day! Our first daycare definitely spoiled us.
k. says
Organic milk is better BUT 80% of organic milk in the USA is ultra-pasteurized, which has its own list of problems. If I could get organic, regular pasteurized milk, I would do that, but otherwise look for regular milk without hormones.
My brain hurts - insurance Q says
Right now I have an high deductible HSA plan (single). I’m expecting in October, and trying to decide whether to convert it to a family plan (with double the deductible and out of pocket) or add the baby to my husband’s plan, which has a comparable deductible, but it seems like the bulk of the hospital charges would be for me only, so I could pay my copay on those (as I’ve met my deductible) and we would pay separately under his plan for the baby. Does anyone have any clue at what point the baby becomes a separately insured entity? I know we have 30 days to add her to either plan, but at this point it seems like it would make more sense to put her on his plan and pay all the baby costs toward that deductible, while I pay my copay for hospital expenses attributable to me only, as opposed to paying against a suddenly doubled deductible.
Is anyone knowledgeable about this? The insurance company said to contact my benefits coordinator, while the benefits coordinator seems to be giving me conflicting answers (that my deductible will double, but also that the baby will be treated as “part of me” for some period of time). As far as I have found, there’s no relevant state law in effect.
Spirograph says
I am not an expert on this by any means, but unless your baby has a condition you already know about, it is likely that all of his/her care will be “well baby” treatment that must be covered at 100% under the ACA. I remember getting a separate bill for my son a couple years ago, but when new baby was born at the beginning of this year, I only got a bill for me. The deliveries and hospital stays were identically uneventful, medically speaking.
pockets says
Not sure about this – I remember being charged $400 for the pedi visit in the hospital (to OK the baby for discharge) because the pedi didn’t accept my insurance (which is ridiculous and which I would have fought tooth and nail if I hadn’t just had a baby).
Katarina says
I had a bill for my son. It was a few years ago, but after ACA was in place. It was about $1000, with no complications. I had already met my OOP maximum, so I paid nothing for myself at delivery. All of the well visits to the pediatrician were 100% covered. I did not have a separate bill from the pediatrician, it was from the hospital.
Stacy says
IME, the baby became its own entity as soon as she was born. So I came home from the hospital with a $25k bill and baby had a $7k bill of her own (scheduled c-section, 2 nights, 3 days). My insurance covered most, but I paid about $5k (whatever my max out of pocket was) of me, plus another $2k or so for baby. This was all before the ACA.
Check what the max out of pocket is. With childbirth, I think that is more important than the deductible. Good luck!
NewMomAnon says
I came home from the hospital with a bill for me and one for my kiddo – she had to be in NICU for a short period of time and then had some jaundice treatments. It was a big bill and I think we paid $2,500 out of pocket for her care. I had met my deductible already, so I don’t think we paid anything for my bill.
In my case, I stayed on my own insurance until I went back to work at part-time status, and then I moved onto my husband’s plan. Baby started life on husband’s plan because he had a plus one option, and I had only single or family.
Carrie M says
I am not an expert at all, but in our experience, as soon as she was delivered, she was her own separate entity for insurance purposes. She went to the NICU at 24 hours old, and there were bills for all of her treatment and test there. I will say that some of the bills came in as [my name] BG — not sure why they referred to her as Baby Girl since we had a name ready for her right away. But the BG bills were for her; my bills were just in my name and only for the treatment I received.
I will say this: I found it staggering how much everything cost when we received our Explanation of Benefits, and that we continued to receive EOBs for MONTHS after we were all home from the hospital. It wasn’t until she was about 10 months old that we were certain that we had received all the hospital bills and paid them. All that said, I was also shocked at how little we paid out of pocket given the prices you see on the EOBs. It’s a crazy system.
sfg says
I have a high deductible plan on my own and DH has his own insurance. Not sure if this is state specific, but even though we intended to add our LO to DH’s insurance, not mine, everything related to the birth in the hospital was attached to my insurance. We had 30 days from birth to formally add her to either his plan or mine; we went with his. The bills for her (related to the hospital stay but not charged through the hospital) came to my attention as the guarantor of the bill. As for the hospital bill itself, the charges for both of us were merged into one bill. Not sure if this is helpful!
ANP says
Which color of this blazer do we think would be most versatile? I’m thinking the purple (pictured) or the green — keeping in mind I have mostly neutral-colored pants and skirts. Thoughts?
Carrie M says
I am also leaning towards the purple as most versatile. The grey stripes are calling my name, but I’ve tried striped jackets in the past that just didn’t work for me. But maybe if I love the purple, I might bite on the stripes.
ANP says
Not that purple isn’t memorable, but I think it’s less-so than the stripes (which I also love!) — which means I couldn’t wear it as often
ANP Paging Considering Three says
I saw your question about 2 vs. 3 kids posted yesterday but didn’t have the chance to respond, so just in case you’re still reading:
DH and I were absolutely on the fence about 2 vs. 3. For context, our eldest kids are now 5.5 and 2.5. We had one of each gender so there was no need to “try” for a boy or a girl or whatever — we just weren’t sure we were done. I knew, however, that I never wanted to be pregnant again — so we started seriously pursuing adoption…and then I accidentally got pregnant last fall. It was, for the better part of 6 months, like living in a nightmare. We were actively preventing and just ended up being the .0003% or whatever and I was devastated. I had some big career dreams on the line, I hate hate hate being pregnant, I was angry at the lack of control I felt in the situation (that this had happened to me) and I felt as though all of the time we’d put into adoption was for naught. I realize, of course, that I could have terminated — and for the record, I am pro-choice — but it wasn’t the right option for us. Still, I won’t lie, that was a very low time in my life.
OK. Fast forward: my baby girl was born last week and I did, in fact, survive the pregnancy (woo hoo!). We haven’t had a ton of days (yet) to live our lives as a family of five but I’ve spent a LOT of time thinking about this. Here’s what I can tell you from the front lines:
1. I don’t think there’s a “right” choice — and as a Type A, I was concerned about making the “right” choice until it was, in fact, made for me. I now better understand that there are sometimes two good options with different outcomes. If you have 2 kids, you love those 2. If you have 3, your life will be different — harder in some ways, sure, but easier or better in others. As with anything, there are tradeoffs.
2. We live close to family and have a great support network, but both of us work full-time and I have a SUPER demanding new job so childcare is something I’m always thinking about. I wish we lived somewhere where nannies are common, but they’re not, which stinks. We do have access to an awesome daycare and that helps a lot. While our extended family isn’t helping care for our kids daily or anything, I can definitely call on my retired MIL to hang out with a sick child or something for a half (or occasionally a full) day when necessary.
3. I do think it gets easier with more kids. I know that sounds bananas, but it was the biggest shock for me personally to go from 0 to 1. 1 to 2 was much easier. Jury is still out on 2 to 3, but our daily routines haven’t changed all that much (yet). But it’s easier b/c we have all the gear, we’re more laid-back now that we’ve been through some of the phases twice, and the two eldest are in a spot where they can pretty easily entertain themselves/each other.
4. My eldest is just starting to get into activities and I totally hear and understand what the other commenters were saying about shuttling kids to this or that, but at the same time we’ve been pretty adamant about limiting the stuff our daughter signs up for and plan to do the same with her sibs. It’s kind of a sucky juggling act — for example, she likely won’t be able to go to a weekday dance class in the fall b/c neither I nor DH can guarantee we’ll get her there on time due to work commitments, which means we have to decide whether we want to commit part of our Saturday/s to one of her activities. But in the overall scheme, that seemed (to me) to be an annoying trade-off but not the end of the world when we were thinking about adding a whole other person to our family.
So — these are just my experiences, nothing earth-shattering here but I’ve been where you are and totally empathize. Now that #3 is here I can’t imagine life w/o her — and if you’d asked me that even 2 months ago I wouldn’t have given you the same answer.
Considering Three says
Thanks for this perspective!
EB0220 says
My husband and I need to set up our will, which of course includes choosing a guardian for our two kids should anything happen to both of us.
Just thinking about this for two minutes is making me ill.
If you’ve done this, how did you go about it and what did you ultimately decide?
FVNC says
We named my sister and her husband as guardians in the event we both die. All our assets go to our daughter in trust, with my financially-savvy uncle named as trustee. Thankfully, the decision was easy for us because no other relatives were really suitable, and we are very close to my sister. The only wrinkle is that my sis and her husband don’t always make the best financial decisions (hence the decision not to name either of them as trustee). It felt a little awkward to ask the potential guardians and trustees if they were okay with the arrangement, but not too bad overall.
It’s not the most pleasant process, but two things helped me: (1) knowing I was doing something good for my kid (e.g., avoiding custody battles between grandparents); and (2) recognizing that it is very unlikely the “worst case” scenario will happen, so treating it like exercise from T&E class way back when (in fact, now that I think about it, our T&E professor may actually have had us draft a will for practice!).
Anon for this says
We picked the guardians first, and then contacted a lawyer to draft our wishes into a will. I would recommend doing it in that order because the lawyer is going to ask you all these questions anyway, and it helps to already know the answers. In terms of picking guardians, we looked at the options, discussed them, and came to a conclusion from the available options. I thought it would be a contentious process, but ultimately we had a very rational and reasonable discussion and came to a good decision (even though I hate thinking about it). We ruled out our parents quickly because of age, which left several sets of siblings, all of whom would be good options from a loving our child and caring for our child as if for their own child. We ultimately picked the set of siblings who we thought (a) our child would be the least burden on; (b) who was most similar to us financially; and (c) who was in the most similar living situation to us (big city vs. small town). We toyed with not telling anyone (letting them find out via the will only if the unthinkable happened) but ultimately we decided to ask the guardians we had chosen if they would accept that responsibility. We did not tell any of the sets of sibs we did not pick, and asked the chosen guardians to keep it confidential as well, to spare hurt feelings. Good luck; it’s not a fun process but you’ll feel so much better when it’s all inked out and taken care of.
TBK says
I’m an only child and my husband’s only sibling is deceased, so this was tough for us. No set of parents is young/mobile enough to have primary care of two little guys, and we have no cousins we’re close to. So that ruled out family. We really thought hard about what life would be like for our boys if we died and what we would want their new home to be like. We wanted someone who lived nearby because we didn’t want their guardians to be essentially strangers to them and we didn’t want the boys to be uprooted and shipped 100s of miles away, far from everything familiar. We also wanted to be sure that whoever we picked would be committed to making sure our parents were still very involved with the boys’ lives. We picked a couple who are friends of both of ours, live in the area but are originally from the area I’m from and have family near my parents (my husband’s family is near where we live now). They are both highly educated and have educations similar to ours, which means they are likely to provide a similar intellectual environment to what we would provide and are likely to prioritize education in the same way we would. Between the two of them, their political/social views are similar to ours as a couple (the husband is more like me and the wife is more like my husband, so as a pair they’re similar to us as a pair) which makes us think our boys would be raised with values we’d agree with. And they are warm, loving people who were deeply touched and honored by our request, took it very seriously and asked for time to think it over and talk together about it, and then agreed wholeheartedly to raise and love our boys if we weren’t there. All of those things make us very comfortable that were anything to happen, our boys would have the things we think are important: family, education, values, and love.
quailison says
Missed this yesterday, but we are going through the same thing at the moment as we had a preliminary meeting with a lawyer last week. We each have one sibling, one of whom is married and one of whom is not. We are leaning towards the married sibling as primary and the unmarried as secondary, with plans to revisit in five or ten years if things change. This is primarily because we think the married couple will have kids at some point and think it would be easier and better to add our son (and any future kids) to the mix. One thing our lawyer wanted us to think about is whether or not to name the sibling or the couple – we decided to go with the sibling alone just in case they divorce or sibling dies (heaven forbid both of those events!) Might feel differently about that, too, in a few years so it’s on the list to revisit. Plus, we haven’t asked that sibling yet though we don’t have any reason to think they’d refuse.
We haven’t decided about joining guardianship and trusteeship though. We both feel differently about it, and surprisingly to us, have different feelings about when any trust should end. It’s very hard to decide these things when I don’t know my kid (he’s still an infant)!
I will say it has made my bar study of wills and trust more interesting and personal…
kes says
Late to the party, but we’re now revising the arrangements we made when our daughter was born (she’s almost 2). We each have a sibling, neither of whom is a good choice, and we chose to avoid parents for the age-related reasons others have stated. So we started with my husband’s relative and their spouse, who have a child around the same age and share our values, etc., and also with a different family member as trustee. The relatives live in another state, so we knew off the bat that it would only be an appropriate arrangement through toddlerhood/preschool, because once she’s older and more anchored in the community we didn’t want to uproot her/disrupt schooling/etc. We were happy with this.
But. We saw the cousin and family a couple of weeks ago and, even though our daughter is still small, watching the way she was treated at their house in comparison to their child made us totally rethink this arrangement. Not that they weren’t loving – just that they (well, really, one of them) 1) so clearly saw ordinary toddler interactions in a light that made their child the “victim” (and characterized it, loudly, in the moment and in recounting later, which itself I thought was unnecessary) and 2) was so inattentive to our daughter’s needs, i.e., standing outside the bedroom door where she was napping and yelling to the other end of the house, because their child wasn’t napping at the same time. I’m not shy about correcting our daughter when she really is doing something wrong, and of course I know we were guests in their house; I just felt like this person was going out of their way to find a way to make her seem blameworthy for totally innocuous things and failing to take totally reasonable steps to accommodate her, like walking down the hall to have a conversation in an ordinary tone of voice rather than yelling. Of course, our toddler didn’t notice/care, I don’t think, but it just didn’t seem like a healthy dynamic.
So we’re in the process of switching our documents to nominate (local) friends of ours who we know are good choices in terms of values/lifestyle/etc., and who we’ve seen interact with our and their kids together and didn’t see any of the same issues. Which would have happened anyway, when our daughter is a little older and uprooting her would be more of a problem, but it was definitely accelerated by our recent experience.
All this is to say two things: First, don’t think about this as a one-time decision; and second, don’t make assumptions about how their new family would function based on what you think you know about them as individuals/adults. All of what I described above totally, completely blindsided us, and we never would have predicted it based on our knowledge of these two people. But of course, we’re glad we had the opportunity to see it now!
Thoughts says
Adding that we went through the same thought process, but also added contingent guardians and trustees. We named my parents as guardians and trustees (we also took out large supplemental insurance policies; husband’s parents died young of inheritable diseases, so it feels like less of an intellectual exercise in our instance). We then named my brother (not brother and SIL, in the event of divorce, etc.) as contingent guardian, and a good financially-savvy/well-off friend as trustee. We discussed with all parties our intentions. If, at the time of our deaths, my parents do not feel like they can handle the kids, they will disclaim to my brother, and my dad can still act as trustee. If my parents are not capable of either, they can disclaim guardianship to my brother and the finances to the contingent trustee.
I expect we will revisit the decision as my parents age (and eventually remove them completely), and as my children get more attached to our community. Going to live with my brother would uproot them in terms of both geographic location and style of living. If I feel like it’s not a good fit for the kids’ personalities as they age, then we’ll re-visit the guardianship arrangement (but I’d probably still split the money and guardianship, if only b/c I the kids would inherit a sizable estate, and I like the idea that they’d have two very trustworthy individuals looking out for their benefit).
ETA – I agree with the above – consider who is most likely to welcome your children into their family, and not see the kids as “competition” with their own. Or a WILLING childless couple. This was another reason we took out large insurance policies. If the kids are not a financial burden, I felt it would lessen any strain guardians might feel to have an additional two children in the home.