Washable Workwear Wednesday: Mid-Rise Slim Flare Harper Trousers
This post may contain affiliate links and CorporetteMoms may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sales of note for 2/7:
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
- J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
- Rothy’s – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+
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?
I take care of my young family first and then do what you reasonably can for my infirm parent, who lives across the country. For me, that primarily means regular FaceTime calls with the kids and my parent. When needed, I also coordinate with local relatives, look into local resources, order groceries online, etc.
I can’t do more for my parent without taking away from my young children. My parent wouldn’t ask for me to do that, but if I was asked, I would be firm in my choice knowing that my parent has had a lifetime to plan for being infirm and elderly, but my kids were just born.
How do you handle both parenting young children and helping aging parents?
I have a six week old and a just turned two year old. I also have a father who is in increasingly poor health. My parents live about two hours away from me. My mom has been making increasingly passive aggressive comments about how I am not helping out enough and not prioritizing family “while they are still here.”
I honestly don’t know what to do. Taking care of two very small children takes up pretty much all of my mental and emotional bandwidth right now. And the constant guilt trips are pretty exhausting.
I don’t want to be a bad daughter and want to help my family. But I really don’t know how. I feel like my grandparents were relatively healthy until I was in high school and more independent. Babies and toddlers need you 24/7. Help!?
I didn’t have time to get back to yesterday’s thread, but thanks to everyone who gave suggestions on dealing with toddler cat tail pulling! I’ve already gotten a chance to try them out (sigh… toddlers…) and taking away kitty and focusing on her seems to be getting the message across more effectively. Of course the tail pulling is still occurring, but I’m not expecting instant miracles…
This blog is so helpful for my parenting. I don’t post that regularly, but I read and take away suggestions daily!
Talk to me about first birthday parties. It’s coming up at the end of the month and we have nothing planned. I’d sort of assumed we would host at our apartment, but now that we’ve made up a guest list, I realize there’s no way we can fit the number of people we’d like to include. And it’s a bit late (not to mention $$$) to reserve an indoor space. It’s fine to have a casual gathering in the park, right? Right?? I’m thinking balloons, casual food, cake.
My command center is the fridge.
I think my family would benefit from having a command center in the kitchen. Anyone have an option for a kitchen command center that isn’t the ubiquitous one from Pottery Barn? My kitchen is slightly more modern and the Pottery Barn one seems a little too traditional for me.
Hi Moms, I wanted to get gut check on speech therapy for my 18 month old. He was born 2 months early, so he is 16 months adjusted. At his most recent well child appointment, the pediatrician recommended that we have him evaluated for potential speech delays because he does not have enough words for his actual age. We did that, and the therapist said that he is a little bit delayed. She recommended weekly sessions for about 6 months to help him along. My husband and I are not concerned about his speech at this point. He is making progress, especially in the last few weeks – picking up new consonants/noises every few days. He’s been meeting his motor milestones on the later side of normal/close to normal for his actual/adjusted ages. For example, he started walking at 16 months actual, 14 months adjusted. So we just kind of expect that for other milestones too.
We are considering waiting until January before starting speech therapy – because we think that if he hasn’t made good progress by then, we will be concerned. And, also because we’d rather not pay for two years’ worth of deductibles (over $1K), since we’d be starting from $0 this year. The money isn’t an issue, but it just doesn’t seem necessary to start therapy right now. But maybe we’re wrong, and it’s better to intervene early?
Not sure if I’m asking for advice here, or just venting.
I feel like one of my biggest frustrations as a parent are people in my life – like my childfree friends – who don’t get the realities of my daily existence.
A few weeks ago, one of my friends (who doesn’t have kids) asked me if I wanted to go out with her this Friday. I can usually swing a quick happy hour after work on a Friday, with enough advance notice, so I said yes.
Today she emailed me – her idea for us going out was to drive an hour to another town to this event she got tickets for. Doors for the event open at 5. She wanted to get there “early” and so asked if I could leave work a little before 4 on Friday.
I thought my head was going to explode. A., I work 9-6 (she knows this) so I can drop my son off in the morning. I have some schedule flexibility, but I do also have a boss, coworkers and clients I’m accountable to, and I’m also in my busiest time of the year right now. So no, I can’t leave work at 3:30 on Friday, sorry. B. If we drive an hour, go to the event from 5-8, and drive back, I won’t be home until 9-9:30. Which means I’ll miss dinner and bedtime and will have to get everything together for the soccer games and birthday party we have this Saturday at like 10pm. Not my idea of a good time after working this week, even if it was a short week.
I feel like she just doesn’t get it. And maybe she doesn’t need to – she’s childfree, in a pretty easy-going marriage, and she runs her own business, so her life is definitely more flexible than mine. But I try to get where she’s coming from when she has to, say, spend time answering client calls when we go to lunch. Is it that hard to understand that leaving work at 3:30 to drive to an event an hour away where I won’t get home until late really isn’t doable for me? Am I expecting too much here?
I’m sorry for posting twice, but I posted late in the day yesterday and don’t think it got a lot of views:
My husband and I went to an art exhibit yesterday and he spent $42 on a tshirt featuring the artist’s work — for our 3 year old son. Does this seem excessive to you guys? Because I’m frustrated. We aren’t rich – have tons of student loans and 2 kids in daycare. And he seemed to think my frustration was an overreaction. What is your take?
My toddler has started dragging her step stool into the kitchen and helping herself to the snacks we keep on the counter. I have been thinking about giving her a bit more food independence by setting up a designated snack bin for her, but I wonder whether this will just increase her consumption of highly processed carbs and also result in her eating less at meals, where we tend to get in the protein and fruits and vegetables. If you’ve tried this approach with your toddler, could you let me know if it was a success, any lessons learned, any specific snack recommendations, etc.?
Husband and I have come to the conclusion that we need more help but we’re not sure what KIND of help we need, so I’m looking for ideas. We have two kids, ages 3, and 5, and both attend full day preschool (until 5 pm). College sitter comes to our home at 4:30 pm to do dishes and some tidying up and dinner prep, and then picks up the kids around 5:15 pm and stays with them at home until 6:45 pm. I usually come home around 6ish and we all eat dinner together until sitter leaves. So we have 2 hours of babysitting help a day. Husband and I then take turns giving kids bath, bedtime routine, etc. Kids go to bed between 8 – 8:30 pm, husband and I eat dinner if we didn’t eat it before with the kids, and I spend the last 2 hours before bed doing cooking/cleaning/attempting to work out.
We have a housecleaner who comes twice a month.
Here are the things that seem to take up a lot of our time:
– cooking
– laundry (but sitter will fold clean laundry if I ask)
– DISHES (even after sitter has unloaded and loaded dishes, we have to do another load before bed). I feel like there are constantly dishes in our sink and our kitchen is a mess.
– miscellaneous things that always seem to come up — taking out the garbage and recycling, paying bills, sweeping the floors, life stuff, etc.
A full time nanny seems wasteful because we love our preschool and like that it offers after school extra curricular activities.
What help do we need?
Congrats! And yes, please share any strategies that you think helped. I have a 3.5 year old who is apparently immune to bribes, and though I don’t want to force the issue, I would like to encourage her.
Complaint time: I have a cold and I’m miserablleeee. I hate having sore throats, they’re my least favorite thing. I’d rather be puking than have a sore throat. I think a pregnancy cold is a lot like a “man cold”, you whine a lot more, are convinced you might die, and refuse to take most medication. Just have to make it through a presentation this afternoon (that I know will have a lot of annoying questions) then I can go home and collapse.
On the bright side, my son is 7 so he can largely fend for himself this evening and I’ll make an easy dinner, I have a super helpful and understanding husband who will understand if I’m being lazy when I get home, and if this presentation ends early I can get home kind of early, and my son doesn’t have sports practice or anything this evening. Also my husband has a work happy hour this evening so I am going to watch an episode of my guilty pleasure reality tv show while he’s out so he doesn’t have to be annoyed by it.
Kiddo has not napped in 3 days, seems not-tired and not-crabby. He’s not quite 2.5! I am not ready for this. (Because this happened over the long weekend, what I am is *tired*.)
I have posted a couple times about my 3.5 year old son who had anxiety about peeing in the potty and was holding it all day when we tried potty training. Just wanted to update for others who are experiencing the same – last week my kiddo started peeing in the potty and is now going independently and happily at home! Poop is another story, but we’ll work on that one a little later. I was so stressed about this and am so relieved. We worked with him a lot and tried several strategies and I’m happy to share more info if anyone wants it – but at the end it probably just came down to his mental/emotional readiness (and juice. lots of juice).