Weekend & Family Friday: Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs
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Mo Willems’ Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs is one of my favorite children’s books. My son has it, I’ve bought it as a gift, and when my son was younger, I read it to his class during my visit for a parent storytime. (The kids seemed to really like it.)
The book is hilarious in a way that both adults and kids will appreciate, and it’s great for reading aloud. It’s also fun to look at all the little details and Easter eggs in the illustrations — make sure to find where the Pigeon is hiding! It’s recommended for children in kindergarten through second grade.
You can find this book in hardcover for $14.62 at Amazon and $16.55 at Bookshop.
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
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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?
Good morning ladies and easy and shallow question to kick off Friday:
I have a just over 3 year old and am looking for grandparent xmas present. He loves duplos (we leaned into that hard last Christmas) and that is one of a few things that really absorb him in independent play. He had decent fine motor skills. Only child.
the question: magnatiles vs. “real” lego.
Magnatiles are constantly raved about here, but i don’t think I have ever seen them in the wild. What makes them so special? Why is it worth investing in another “set”? (lego, playmobile, paw patrol world etc). Given that he is already 3, will we get much longevity out of them? (Main starter set is C$140 ish – you can buy a lot of lego for that!)
I am 100% sure that we will ultimately be a lego household. My SIL is already making noise about hand me downs. Can a three year old get “real” lego apart? I would likely do the big generic bin of blocks and I am confident that he would be able to build things, but part of the value of the toy will be lost if i have to take everything apart if he wants to modify the structure.
Thank you. Other thoughts welcome too.
We already have wooden trains that he loves, but generally requires parent engagement, he has a kitchen centre (not used all that much). I was planning to get him some hot wheels track (racing cars is his number one passion), unless i do lego, super hero dress up stuff and my sister is tasked with finding a road roller to round out his construction vehicle set. Other grandma will go rogue and get god knows what.
Our 3-year-old could put together and take apart real Legos.
When do kids start doing things more independently? My almost 5 year old takes baths, not showers, and I still wash her hair, etc. I help her with brushing her teeth (I brush first, then she takes a turn). She wipes her bottom and then I wipe (which she definitely still needs). How can I teach her to do these things more independently and feel confident it’s done right? Particularly the butt wiping, ha. She’s otherwise pretty independent–gets dressed on her own, shoes on her own, gets water on her own, buckles herself into carseat, etc. I guess I just don’t know how to teach things like hair washing. Any tips?
PSA: shutterfly 50% off sale is now!!
And here’s a grinchy question for you: what do you do with your kids’ leftover halloween candy? We have a large mixing bowl full of candy that we need to put the kibosh on– it’s long been picked over for the good stuff and I don’t want them eating blow pops every day from here until next summer (peanut-free school = LOTS of blowpops). I’ve taken some of it to my office but it’s not moving very quickly there either. Throw it away I guess?
We have a lot of Elephant & Piggies books from Mo Willems that I generally like but this Goldilocks one was a little much for us. Too many in-jokes for parents that just makes it annoying to read.
Another holiday cards questions -are there any sites that allow you to adjust dimensions of the pictures? Photo book style almost?
Those of you whose kids share a room, two questions. My 4 year old and 2 year old love sharing, and it is adorable to hear them chatting at night and in the morning. But I suspect 4 year old is ready to stay up later, and I don’t want to her to keep 2 year old awake- we were thinking maybe give her a flashlight for reading? I think staggered bedtimes would be too disruptive (I think she would wake 2 year old up to chat when she goes to bed).
Also, naps- currently they nap separately- 2 year old in pack n play in the office, 4 year old has quiet time in her room. When 2 year old outgrows pack n play, I guess we then have to let 4 year old loose in the house? I would love to keep her confined for “quiet time” but I don’t see a way of doing that if 2 year old still needs to nap.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/world/schools-covid-europe-us-lockdown-intl/index.html
And interesting article about how things are being handled in different countries. BIL is a teacher in Europe and his school has the 14-18 year olds sent home for virtual teaching but the 10-14 year olds are still receiving in person instruction. Covid rate in their area is actually slightly worse than US average.
Not sure what is wrong with this page, but somehow twice now when I was in the middle of typing, it punted me back to the homepage and my text disappeared. Maybe related to certain ads appearing in the sidebar? Grr! Apologies if this posts in partial triplicate.
My middle son just started at a play-based nursery school. He’s the oldest in his class (turned 4 just after school started). He is very smart, but also contrarian, wild, high-energy and attention-seeking. We’ve had to deal with hitting and non-cooperation issues at home and at his prior care setup, and I’ve checked in with his teachers a few times at his new school to make sure he’s doing okay, generally at times when he’s indicated that he’s had behavior issues. They’ve always reassured me that it’s within the range of normal for his age, that he isn’t the only kid in class working on these challenges, etc. However, we just had formal parent-teacher conferences, and they told us that his behavior is so bad that he needs a teacher dedicated to him at all times, to keep him on track. Like, if he’s painting at the easel, one of the three teachers is right there with him to make sure he doesn’t go wild (and lead the other kids to follow him – despite the hitting, he’s apparently a popular kid and thus can be a bad influence). He also has trouble joining group activities and following group instructions. Apparently he’s improved a bit in recent weeks, but I doubt it’s permanent given the ups and downs of his behavior for the past few years. They didn’t threaten to expel him or anything, but I’m just taken aback by how difficult he seems to be, and how they didn’t share at our informal catch-up calls earlier in the year or on any of my several one-off emails checking in on his behavior based on his own feedback. I have a feeling that part of the issue is the rigidity of the class due to COVID, and maybe some of it is sleep-related, and maybe some of it is my fault because our weekday mornings are always hectic…but it’s really hard to assess especially because he likes to play games when he knows we’re looking for a straight answer on how he’s feeling, or why, or how school is, or what changes he’d like to see. He even tells tall tales about his day, so we have no idea what they actually do in school. Like I said, he is very smart, and in a sneaky way. I’ve talked with my psychologist about this and read plenty of parenting books, but I’m not finding any of that helpful today. Bottom line — what can I do about this? Or do I just accept that we’re at capacity, he’s not at risk of being expelled, and we’ll just have to keep muddling and hope he grows out of this eventually?
Not sure if I’m looking for advice or just venting… mostly a vent, for which I’d take advice if available.
We have to pack a lunch for my kindergartener. Usually snacks/lunches are provided by the school but they stopped due to COVID (not sure why, just, the rule). So this is new for us.
School does not permit any nuts, pine nuts or sesame due to allergies in her class, and lunches must be cold. We are pescatarian. Kid is not at all a picky eater at home, but she has lots of criteria for things she will eat at school – no fish, no vegetables that we would normally serve hot (e.g. she loves steamed or roasted broccoli served hot at home but won’t eat raw or cold broccoli at school, she likes black beans on a taco or potato at home but won’t eat them cold at school) or things she would normally eat with a dip (e.g. she loves carrots and celery with peanut butter or hummus at home but I can’t send peanut butter or hummus to school). Sunbutter is permitted at school and she’ll eat a little bit of it but she doesn’t really love it.
She is also my kid who is most affected by not eating enough/blood sugar swings – my other kids are fine to eat a big breakfast and a big after-school snack and just nibble at their morning snack + lunch, but that just does not suit her at this stage of her growth. So I feel like I am always scrambling to figure out what the heck I can pack her that meets all of these many, many restrictions/criteria… I get SO frustrated coming up with ways to vary the same narrow set of ingredients and still include protein and vegetables and come up with basically the same thing every day (hard boiled egg, cheese sandwich, cucumber slices and grapes pretty much every day this week, with crackers, cheese and apple slices for morning snack…. she’s sick of it and so am I).
I so wish her school would go back to providing lunches… they were varied, reasonably healthy and she loved lunch time, and now it’s a frustration every day. I should probably sit down with her and just list out all the possible foods we can think of that she will agree to eat at school and I am willing to make and then we mutually resign ourselves to it being a pretty short list. (My husband does almost everything else at home and lunch packing is my one contribution so “make DH help” is off the table.)
Inspired by the comment above, anyone have any great tricks for keeping water out of your kids’ faces when you rinse their hair? My kids inevitably twist around, which gets more water in their face than if they just kept tipping their head backwards. We keep a dry washcloth on hand to wipe their eyes after each pour, but are there brilliant solutions I’m missing?
Follow on to the question about holiday gifts yesterday — what is appropriate to gift early elementary teachers at a private school?
We always gave sizeable cash gifts to daycare teachers. Our public school had explicit caps on the value of gifts and teachers filled out a “favorite things” list, so we did small gift cards & edible treats. Where do private schools fall on this spectrum? If it matters, it’s a Montessori school, so one kid is in a true elementary class, but the kindergartener is in the 3-6 year old class, preschool/K hybrid.