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Sales of note for 6.25.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Designer clearance up to 70% off; limited-time savings on selected shoes
- Ann Taylor – 30% off full price tops and sweaters; extra 30% sale (both end 6/26)
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything plus extra 15% off purchase
- Eloquii – Semi-annual clearance, up to 85% off
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off warm-weather styles; extra 50% off sale styles
- Lands’ End – 50% off your order
- Loft – $39 dresses and 40% off your purchase (ends 6/26)
- Talbots – 30% off all markdowns, summer favorites starting at $24.50 (ends 6/25)
- 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 – Summer clearance up to 70% off; 50% off tops, shorts & more
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all dresses; up to 50% off all baby items
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Up to 50% off warm-weather styles; extra 50% off sale styles
- Old Navy – 50% off all polos; 60% off steals
- Target – 20% off women’s swim; 50% off patio furniture, garden items & accessories; up to 30% off kitchen & dining
Anonymous says
My husband is considering not exercising all of his parental leave bc he is worried about negative career consequences. He works at a company with 3 months leave and wants to take half…but he isn’t wrong that there have been lots of layoffs lately. At the same time, I feel like you cannot really insulate yourself from that risk so you should take advantage of the benefits while you can. It just annoys me to no end that he is even thinking about it.
busybee says
Unfortunately, he’s not entirely wrong to be concerned. There are some studies showing that men who take leave face professional backlash. (So do women! I’m not saying this is right). Especially since there have been lots of layoffs lately, I don’t blame him for being worried. But I 100% understand your frustration.
Anonymous says
Can he take it part time? DH was in a similar situation and ended up taking 4 weeks full time and then 8 weeks at 50%. He was home in the mornings and worked in the afternoons. We found a local SAHM who was not interested in a full time childcare but was interested in 8 weeks of half days.
Anon says
Honestly, if he’s targeted for a layoff, it’s probably going to come whether he takes the leave or not. Take the leave. And keep documentation too.
Anon says
+1. If the company doesn’t want people to take their full parental leave then they would change their policy.
Anonymous says
I think you’re right to be frustrated. Even in the most toxic places I’ve worked, not taking all your parental leave would not insulate you from layoffs. That just not how that works. Can you have him discuss with his manager? This is assuming manager isn’t part of the problem. Tbh he needs to be job hunting. Sometimes when my husband is irrationally ruminating on something I can redirect him to laser focus on something more productive (like job hunting, in this case). Maybe try that?
anon says
DH is currently on week 1 of his 12 weeks. I think he was on the fence until his company did do massive layoffs, including laying off people DH thought were really talented, and for reasons that seemed arbitrary, like eliminating a full branch type thing. He realized that with a large corporation, you can show all the “loyalty” and “dedication” you want, but they might just eliminate your job tomorrow. Take the leave.
Anon says
Exactly this. Never fall into the trap of thinking you’ve shown so much loyalty or sacrificed so much that they would never lay you off.
GCA says
This. (As an elder millennial, I came to this realization during the 2008 downturn.) It’s transactional. Take the leave.
Anon says
This
Anon says
Taking leave is not always negative. Sometimes the money for paid leave comes from a different bucket than the projects you work on, so if a team is stretched then they get a break not paying for labor while you’re out.
Anon says
Does he have to take it consecutively? My husbands company offers 12 weeks but he could take it anytime the first year as long as he took a full week. He took 8 straight weeks and then spread the remaining 4 over the year like when his parents came to visit or baby was sick.
Anon says
My husband was only able to take a few days off after I gave birth (he had no paternity leave and only 2 weeks of PTO for the entire year). Even if your husband only takes 1.5 months off instead of 3 months, it’s still pretty awesome, compared to what many families go through. I don’t mean to belittle your frustration but there is another way to look at it.
Anon says
They’re probably less likely to lay off someone who recently took leave, because of the potential liability if it seems like they’re discriminating against those who used leave.
anon says
I’d be super frustrated too. I think it’s really unlikely that anyone will recognize his wife and child’s sacrifice in his shortened leave and therefore spare him a layoff that he would otherwise face. In my jurisdiction, it’d be unduly risky to target someone for layoff because they’d been on paternity leave.
On the other hand, taking less leave is setting him up for missing out on a lot with the baby and setting your family up for a dynamic where you’re the default parent.
Is he also going to avoid taking his share of sick days to care for the baby when the baby is ill because layoffs? Then, when his career goes better because he hasn’t been on leave or taken a fair share of sick days, will he demand that you carry on with being the default because of his career? Or maybe he does get laid off, will you be default because he needs to create a good impression at new job?
Anon says
OMG. I did the Thing. The Thing that has been plaguing me for like 6 months. and it feels SO FREAKING GOOD. We leave for vacation in two weeks, and I’m happy it’s’ behind me.
Anon says
What was the thing?
Anon says
Does anyone have tips for teaching kids to be neat eaters? I feel like my kids a little behind in this regard and I’m pretty tired of handling laundry stains. There is definitely a larger set of manners that I’m making some time to (try to) teach this summer, but I feel like I don’t know how to teach neat eating to kids. We have a lot (A LOT) of issues with picky eating so I feel like just getting them to eat food has been my focus for so long but now I feel like I need to address this too. Kids are 6 and 3.
Anon says
I have a child who has some sensory stuff – he’s never really been diagnosed with anything, but it just takes him a lot longer to “feel” things. He is a horrifically messy eater. Three things help:
1) reminding him before we sit down of some bigger manners to be aware of. It’s so annoying to everyone (him, me, the rest of our family) to be a nag during meals.
2) not expecting him to just “know” – but spending time with him teaching him how to hold a fork, how to cut, where a napkin goes, etc. (again, not at meals tho)
3) Relaxing standards at dinner when we are all tired, and looking the other way so that I’m driving both of us crazy
GCA says
What is your main issue – is it accidental clothing disasters? Intentional clothing disasters (wiping your mouth on your sleeve)? Or getting food all over the table and floor while eating?
At age 9 and almost-6, the accidental clothing disasters are mostly a non-issue, but we are still working on using napkins instead of sleeves and I have to remind them to ‘please eat over your plate’. For the ‘food on the floor’ issue, our kids started sweeping under the table as their house chore at age 6, so your 6yo could do that. 9yo is learning to get stains out of laundry, because stains are an inevitable part of an active life. Neither of those things will stem the problem at its source; it may be many more years of constant reminders before things click, but that is the price of raising competent adults!
Anon says
I would say biggest issues are all the ones you mentioned lol. Food and crumbs over the floor as a result of not eating over the plate. Accidental food stains. Using shirt to wipe mouth. And not super adept at utensil use for either age.
Anon says
well it makes me feel a bit better that it is not only my kids. i have 6 year old twins. one is fairly eat. the other has gross/fine motor/body awareness challenges and is a hot mess when she eats. crumbs everywhere, always knocking over things, etc. part of it is that she takes huge bites of food instead of little bites, which would be better, but it’s hard bc i don’t want her to feel like we spend 24/7 criticizing everything she does bc she requires a lot of redirection. i think it is helpful to focus on one thing at a time. for example, one issue we were having is water cups being too close to the edge of the table/not being put back in the proper spot between bites of food, so now we all have coasters at the top right corner of our placemats and we are working on remembering to put our cups back there. mine is also not super adept at utensil usage, but again, she really works so hard at school all day on things that i know come more easily/naturally to many other kids, i’m trying not to let it be for now
Anon says
I’m right there with you. My 6 year old is still an incredibly messy eater. We haven’t focused on it because we’ve had other behavioral issues that seemed more pressing, but I know we need to soon.
anon says
SAME as a lot of these commenters (messy 6yo, other battles were more pressing/some gross motor challenges, but he’s now 6 and still wiping his hands on his shirt and not eating over his plate…way messier than my naturally neater 4yo). The comment about a coaster gives me an idea – maybe a no-slide placemat? Always seemed like one more thing to clean but maybe it will help him remember to put his plate right in front of him and eat over it. Worth trying for me, ty for the brainstorming! I’ll let you all know if I think of anything else.
Anonymous says
Ugh I would love tips on this too. DS is 5 and basically shoves food into his mouth, hot dog eating competition style. It creates a massive mess. Plus he nearly choked to death on calamari a few months ago, which was completely terrifying. Right now my main strategy (aside from constant reminders to eat politely) is to give him a kid knife along with his other silverware, because he thinks it’s fun to be a grown up and cut his own bites. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stick with it and is usually shoving food into his mouth with his hands after a few minutes.
Anonymous says
It’s good that you are thinking about this now. I have a nephew who just graduated from college who holds his fork in his fist and stabs his food, and gets food all over his face without ever using a napkin. I fear that his lack of basic table manners will hurt his employment prospects, among other things.
For kids with sensory issues who may not notice that they are making a mess I think you have to practice step by step and teach a formula. Cut, bite, dab with napkin, repeat. Slowly and methodically. I would teach the European style of holding the fork to avoid the awkward step of switching hands.
Anon says
How do federal/observed holidays work with maternity leave? I’ll be taking leave (in CA) over a period with at least 4-5 holidays – will I “lose out” on them and have to use days of leave instead? HR at my company is a joke and is 99.9 guaranteed to just make up an answer on this.
Anon says
You lose the holidays at my (otherwise very generous) company. Not in california though.
Anon says
yea same. i was out over july 4th and thought that would extend my leave by a day, but no
Anonymous says
Same here. I’m at a very small firm so this was all in-house policy – no FMLA or short-term disability insurance or anything like that. My leave was generous but it was X days from start to finish, period.
Anon says
I’m not in CA but the holidays extended my leave (or rather required me to use fewer vacation days to build the leave I wanted).
Anon says
Holidays didn’t count against my leave, so extended it by a week. But I think it’s really going to depend on your company
Anon says
My nine month old is starting to get a lot of hair, and I would like a way to pull it back from her face. But it is so thin, any normal hair tie would be way too big. Where do you find tiny hair ties? Are other things that work?
Anon says
So I started a big fancy new job on Monday and… toddler has some sort of stomach flu. DH took Monday off so that I could show up on my first day (in a hastily changed outfit, ugh). She seemed OK yesterday so she went to daycare, but she was sick again last night so today I’m working from home with a sick child. I guess this is how I test if my new business is actually family-friendly? Fortunately I’m mostly watching on-boarding videos so it’s a relatively quiet day for me. But working parenthood is no joke!
Vicky Austin says
A fun shopping question if anyone wants it! My BFF has an almost 2yo who wears size 3T, but she really loves all the little matching sets that at stores like ON/Gap only go up to 24m. Does anybody know where I could find cute set outfits in toddler sizes? I want to surprise her.
Anonymous says
Carters or Gymboree
Emma says
H&M and Zara both have some cute sets in toddler sizes (but just FYI they tend to be on the smaller end of the size range). As the mom of a 98th percentile almost 2yo, I empathize! Another thing to look out for is that 3T clothing often doesn’t have easy diaper changing access because they apparently assume your child is potty trained, which probably isn’t the case for a tall 2yo.
Anonymous says
I’m assuming it’s a girl. I guess maybe I’m not understanding exactly what you’re looking for but here are a few options I liked. Do you mean the gauze sets?
Target:
https://www.target.com/p/toddler-girls-floral-top-bottom-set-cat-jack-green/-/A-89437886
https://www.target.com/p/toddler-girls-gauze-top-bottom-set-cat-jack/-/A-90183472
Old Navy
https://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=420906022
https://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=420882012
Carters:
https://www.carters.com/carters-little-planet/V_2Q755010.html
I bought a version of this for family photos a couple years ago and was pleased with the quality.
Anon says
Carters usually has matching sets through the full toddler range. Target also has mix and match things but they release things in the same couple of color palettes each season. Like they have the same shade of blue shorts to go with a tshirt that has the blue and green stripes as an accent.
Anon says
My unathletic* 6 year old is doing an evening soccer camp this week and is really enjoying it. I asked her if she wants to sign up for fall soccer and she said yes, but it seems like even the rec league in our town is a pretty intense schedule: three times per week (two weeknight practices and one Saturday game) for 2.5 months. Every other activity she does is just once a week at this age. Is this normal for soccer? Would you have her sign up even if it meant taking a break from other activities? I don’t think having activities nearly every day will work for our family, so if she did soccer it would mean dropping several other things during the season. But most of her other activities are enrolled on a monthly basis, so it wouldn’t be a huge break from them.
*someone jumped on me the last time I described her this way, but rest assured I don’t say this in front of her and I would describe myself the same way (moreso!) so it’s not a criticism
Anon says
Yes, unfortunately, at least here in the Northeast. I think for age 5/6 it was one practice and one game, but starting at age 7/8 it’s two practices and one game. One thing to find out is if the practices are run by the actual coach, or if it’s an outsourced group. For us it was the latter (like, high school and college team volunteers) and it’s was 100% not necessary to attend the practices, and even the games were a cluster, on tiny “fields” without rules enforced very much. I’m trying to talk my kids out of skipping it this year, but they both like it and it is the one thing we do in the fall.
If I were you, I’d drop it until she’s had some space from camp, and then ask again. And feel free to skip one of the practices each week if it’s better for your family. Sports overtake lives only if we let them, and in elementary school rec leagues nothing is critically important. Or yes, limit her to 1-2 activities and let her know that doing soccer means she can’t do X.
Anon says
*Talk my kids INTO skipping it this year…
(Unfortunately I’m finding that unless you are in a competitive league, which I am not interested in for young kids, the quality of sports programs is highly unpredictable and there’s not much focus on teaching or progressing in more casual run leagues. It feels like a waste of time.)l YMMV.)
Anon says
Unfortunately the deadline to register for fall is this week, so we don’t have much time. But good point on not having to attend all the practices. She has Girl Scouts every other week, which is the one activity we can’t really pause temporarily, so maybe it makes sense to skip one of the practices on Girl Scouts weeks (even if they don’t directly conflict).
anon says
For 1 day a week you might see if your Parks and Rec department offer a weekly clinic.
Our rec program is only 1 practice + 1 game per week. I will say that 1 practice a week really isn’t enough to see much progress. Our development program (a step up from rec) has 2 practices + 1 game per week and kids improve much faster.
Anon says
There are AYSO type leagues in NYC that are only one day a week for under U6. It is one hour combined on a weekend – 35 minutes practice and 25 minutes game. I think for U7 it is 1:15 total on one weekend day. Maybe you could look for something like that in your city?
GCA says
What are your goals for her from soccer? What does she want to get out of fall soccer? I have a similarly unathletic 6yo (heck, I was an unathletic 6yo who was uncoordinated and did not enjoy sports) and I would be delighted for her to find some sort of outdoor physical skill/ activity she loved. I would sign her up for fall soccer, and if she’s pleading to go to the practices, try to get to as many of them as far as it works for your family.
Anon says
That’s what baseball/softball is like near us but soccer is less intense. Do you have soccer shots where you are? There is a 5-7 age group that’s only once a week
Anonymous says
If she likes soccer and is willing to pause other activities if necessary, and you can swing the finances and the logistics, do it! Absolutely no question.
Anonymous says
I think a higher practice-to-game ratio makes for more fun. I wish all sports would hold off on competition altogether until the kids are a little older and have enough skills to play a decent game.