Family Friday: Magformers Standard Set
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I don’t think I’ve ever done a roundup of some of my kids’ favorite toys, but as we’re heading into the holidays, I wanted to highly recommend Magformers. One of our former nannies got them for J when he was really young, and both kids have loved playing with them for years now. They’re durable, and they’re versatile, because you can go from just having fun with them (and, say, building diving boards, which is what H likes to do right now) to making really complicated things. There are different sorts of sets (robots, log cabin, etc.), but we just have the standard ones and the boys love them. Magformers Standard Set
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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?
These are very cool!
We got magna tiles when my son was 6 or so and I wish I had known about them sooner. He still plays with them at least a a few times a week (he’s 7.5). That’s partially because they’re one of the few toys I allow to be stored in our main living area (since they can go in a nice basket with a throw blanket over top, and no one has to know there’s toys in there). He creates all sorts of structures, and I’d imagine the ones you posted would be great because they have openings, which makes it easier to get little action figures etc. into the structures for imaginative play!
It’s within the normal range for my twins not to be crawling yet at 9 months, right? All the babies we know seem to have started crawling at 6-7 months and everyone seems shocked ours aren’t yet.
Husband is away for an international work trip, and my in-laws picked up our 4 and 1 year old last night for a “vacation” at the grandparents house until Sunday (obviously my in-laws are the best people in the world). I feel like I should miss them, but I have to say, it was really nice to eat breakfast without anyone throwing things on the floor, get dressed without having to listen to the Dinosaur Train song, and not have to lug 25 lbs of baby/baby stuff to daycare this morning! But I do feel guilty that I’m not missing them…
Taking stuff to daycare – what’s the best way?
I have an in home provider with only two other kiddos so I have tons of flexibility. I could bring all the milk, food, diapers, and extra clothes once a week if I wanted. Or, I could bring in stuff every day.
Which is easier in peoples experience? If I drop stuff everyday do I just use the diaper bag or should I use a separate “daycare” bag?
I know I’ll be taking home used bottles/dirty clothes every day so I’m not sure what the 1x week option would save me, other than not forgetting things on the way out the door. Or not having to pack a bag every night.
For non-religious families, how do you celebrate the holidays and explain them to your kids? My husband and I were raised going to church but no longer practice, and I’m more on the agnostic / atheist side now. Kiddo is 3 this year. As context, we usually celebrate Christmas as a secular / cultural holiday, meaning small tree and a few presents, nice dinner, nothing overboard. We don’t have extended family in the area and won’t travel this year. We were discussing doing pictures with Santa this weekend – we’ve done it in past years – but I can imagine that opening up a can of worms now that kiddo is big enough to ask the why questions. I don’t really have a good answer to why we take pictures with this kind of creepy old guy for a holiday we celebrate in a totally secular manner. It’s tradition? I don’t want to be a total Scrooge but also don’t plan to raise our kids in a religion, so I don’t have plans to delve into the religious explanation of Christmas. How do you guys manage it?
More broadly, tips or resources (books? blogs?) on raising moral/ethical kids and good people outside established religion? I don’t believe religion is necessary (to raising kids, or being a good person) but also not sure how to go about this in practice.
I posted on Monday about realizing our 15 mo kid had bitten a hole in the n!ppl3 of his bottle so we tossed them. He has NOT been happy about not getting milk. He can totally drink out of sippies and water bottles, but he really, really doesn’t want to drink milk out of them. We have tried the three or four sippy types we already have, and even his water bottle (the contigo one from costco), but he is not having it. I tried the doidy cup, which he has successfully used for water before, and he instantly dumped it. He likes drinking water out of our glasses, but I haven’t tried that for milk yet as it’s annoying for him to drink out of heavy and breakable glasses that need our constant assistance. I ordered some straw cups from Amazon, but despite “2 day shipping” they are not here yet.
He seems to be getting really mad in the morning, especially when he sees us going into the fridge, and he points at the bottles we use to transport milk to daycare. But he will not drink when we try any of the devices. He has also been waking up about an hour earlier the last few days, and last night he was up in the middle of the night sobbing. Apparently my husband had difficulty putting him to bed last night and he cried for a long time (baby, not husband). I can’t tell if he’s hungry? Or just wants milk?
After last night, I’m considering buying another bottle just for bedtime, but that feels like a step back and, as my husband said, won’t he just bite it again? Ugh! This is frustrating.
I realize that what I’m writing is kind of crazy, but I just need some reassurance. I am 12.5 weeks into my first pregnancy and am starting to think what the h*ll did we do. Every time I watch a tv show and there is a teen addicted to drugs, or a pregnant teen, etc. I’m scared that is going to happen to my kid. I miscarried, it took us a long to conceive and so I am thrilled to be pregnant, but I’m so nauseous, vomiting multiple times a day, etc. Even writing that I’m miserable in this post makes me nervous that i’m jinxing it. I’m kind of a superstitious person and I’m scared that I’m going to lose the pregnancy or something will be wrong in my first trimester screening, etc. Please remind me that hating being pregnant will not actually affect the health of my baby or cause me to lose the baby.
Thank you to whoever posted on my BFing thread yesterday with the reminder that it’s OK not to BF. My experience with my first was very similar to what you wrote. It didn’t feel natural, it was the opposite of bonding time (I remember looking down and thinking “if I were a cave woman I’d just drop you on the ground and leave right now”), pumping made me feel like an animal, I didn’t just leak but SPRAYED at random, it did insane things to my hormones, and overall negatively affected my parenting experience for the weeks that I did it. I’m definitely open to trying again, but it was a good reminder that at the first sign of it affecting my bonding with my baby and my ability to be (somewhat) emotionally stable post-partum, that it’s OK to quit.
Thank you to everyone else as well for the tips on supplies and the reminder that lactation consultants are out there. This board is always such a great resource of knowledge while remaining supportive of the different choices we all make for our children.
Does anyone have any good recommendations for books to tackle tough topics with a preschooler? I’m specifically looking for a “where babies come from” book, a “no means no/body privacy/safety” book, and a “you’re going to be a big sibling” book. The selection on Amazon in these categories is overwhelming, so if people have ones they like I’d love to hear about it. The child in question is a girl, if that matters.
Yesterday a firm that I used to work for (in a different city) contacted me and said they have an opening: we didn’t discuss compensation but the job is absolutely what I want to do for the next 10-20 years.
DH and I live in a MCOL city with our 9 month old. We both have jobs that pay well, although I hate my job and am bored to death (been low-key job searching for months). We own a house in a decent neighborhood (not walkable, bad schools, but safe and we like our neighbors). New job is in a HCOL town 3 hours away, with bad traffic and good schools (very walkable, which we love). We would relocate, but DH would keep his job in our current city and commute 2 weeks per month. We would likely need to rent for a while. We just completed a second round of IUI last week. Before I found out about HCOL job, my plan was to have a baby next year and then quit (Just being honest). But now this job is on the table and I’m really tempted to take it. DH is on the fence, but open to the possibility. Advice? Things I haven’t considered? Am I being insane?
DH just received a call from daycare that Kiddo has a fever, and DH has to pick him up. Kiddo was invited to a birthday party for one of his classmates tomorrow morning, and the mom made it clear in the invitation that only a few kids were invited. I emailed her to say that Kiddo is sick and being sent home, and we’re really sorry/disappointed but will have to miss the party. That was the right thing to do, right? Kiddo seems to be feeling OK, and we could get the fever down with meds, but I don’t want to expose the other families to whatever he has. I also didn’t want to put the other mom in an awkward position by leaving it up to her (because if it were me, I’d feel guilty saying, “Please don’t come,” even if they were sick).