Weekend & Family Friday: Musical Piano Mat
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.
I almost never buy my kids toys for the holidays — we have very generous friends and family who are more than happy to fill the Santa role. My kids are nearly five years apart, and one challenge for the Santas in our lives is finding a toy that the kids can enjoy together.
Post-holidays, the Tencoz Musical Piano Mat has emerged as a favorite of both kids: The toddler likes stepping on and pushing the large keys, while his big sister uses the recording function to share her “compositions.” It has five selection modes (demo, one-click annotation, play, playback, and record) and eight sounds.
I like that it rolls up for easy storage, isn’t annoyingly loud, and wipes down.
The mat is on sale for $19.99 at Amazon. Musical Piano Mat
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
See some of our latest articles on CorporetteMoms:
Click here to see our top posts!
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?
We’re considering getting a bunk bed with stairs for our almost 5 year old and toddler. We don’t think they could handle going up and down a ladder, especially if they need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We’ve read that the stairs can be steep and we don’t feel comfortable going into a store right now to test them out.
Does anyone have recommendations for a stair bunk bed for younger kids? Are the stairs super steep?
Anyone have kids far apart in age and can share how that’s gone for you as a parent? I have a 5 year old from my first marriage and my new husband and I are considering whether to try to add another kid. They would be 6-7 years apart, perhaps even 8 as we’re not too eager to get going on this project quite yet (enjoying the “newlywed with a 5 year old” lifestyle). My kid is very extroverted and would enjoy a playmate but I’m not sure how much she would enjoy having a baby around. Also, we would not be able to afford a place with separate rooms for them at least until the younger one is out of daycare, but could potentially switch bedrooms and split the bigger bedroom up with some sort of room divider if needed (baby would share the room with us until around 1 or sleep trained or something like that). Everyone I know with multiple kids has them share a room, but they are all pretty close in age.
Ugh, gender norms start early folks. I told my toddler son “You’re so beautiful!” and he replied “I’m a he, not a she, I’m not beautiful!” We use beautiful as a gender neutral descriptor in our house, but no matter what you do, it seeps in, huh?
how much TV are your kids watching on the weekends these days? we used to be so good about having minimal TV but with young kids (2 & 7) I feel like my 2 year old is spending 2-3 hours on weekends watching TV and my seven year old probably closer to 3-4. It’s just so hard to keep them entertained otherwise with winter and covid, and we always have so much to do because work is busier that it’s nice to have that time.
Let’s play the name game. What are you best ideas/favorite names for a girl that do not end in the letter “a” or the sound “ah” (so not Louisa, Maria, etc.)? Bonus points if it includes the letter “z” (not necessarily at the start or end). I tend to like names of Sanskrit, Hebrew, Jewish, Middle Eastern origin but am open to any and all thoughts …
Baby #2 is due to arrive next week. If you’ve had a pandemic baby and have older kids, how did you handle the baby’s arrival in terms of older kid school attendance? We’ve kept our toddler home since Thanksgiving to avoid a positive COVID test at the hospital, but we’re all starting to go a bit crazy and would like to send him back pretty soon after the birth.
How is everyone feeling about housecleaners these days re: COVID? I am desperate for help on the home front. I’ve been doing it all myself, but really need to outsource something, anything. (We already do purple carrot for meal services.)
We have this you and it is not a hit with our kids (2 and 4).
This is totally random but the discussion above brought this up for me – does anyone else just not use “terms of endearment” when calling their kids – I’m thinking buddy, sweetie, honey (a slightly less gendered one), etc.? I just call my kids by their names, same as I’ve always done for my husband (i.e. no “babes” over here) but I wonder if this makes me seem cold somehow? Or is this actually better to not reinforce gendered terms? Just curious.