CorporetteMoms

Updated: Jan 2, 2017 98 Comments · by

Finally Friday: Nora Pull-On Stretch Skinny Corduroys

Machine-Washable Work Clothes· Recent Recs

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.

A woman wearing a pair of Nora Pull-On Stretch Skinny Corduros.These pants are a reader favorite, and they’ll be warm and comfortable this season. They are pull-on, which can be good if you’re avoiding a c-section scar, etc., but they can also be a little too loose in the waist. So, unless you’re wearing a lot of tunics, if you’re bending down with your kids you may end up with your underwear showing. Except for the “artichoke” color, these are only available in lucky sizes right now (petite and regular) because they’re on sale for $48 from $74. However, there’s a really great teal that’s not marked down and still available in all sizes 0-16. JAG Nora Pull-On Stretch Skinny Corduroys Here’s a plus-size option. Update: note that Amazon has some options as low as $13! (L-all)

Sales of note for 9.10.24

(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)

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!

Comments

  1. Anon in NOVA says

    These are too tempting today. I don’t own many tunics so it’s best I avoid the pull on pants…

    I just noticed the instantpot is posted on the main page. I LOVE my instant pot! It took some convincing to get one, I didn’t think it would be that great, but it is! It’s basically a crock pot for lazy people… I make many of the same meals I’d make in my crock pot, but I don’t have to remember to put everything in in the morning before I leave for work, I can wait until 5:30 or 6:00 and have dinner within 30 minutes!

    • LB says

      Can you explain more? There seems to be a somewhat cult like following on Facebook of the Instapot. What’s so great about it? Not that I need another kitchen appliance…. :)

      • Anon in NOVA says

        It’s the ease of a crockpot without the time constraints, if that makes sense. You can throw stuff in and turn it on, but instead of it taking 8 hours it takes 30 minutes (it can, however, also be used as a slow cooker). It also has a “sautee” function, so you can brown meat in the pot before you add other stuff if needed, saving on steps/dishes
        I grew up thinking of pressure cookers as things that explode, but this isn’t like that.
        Examples of things I make in mine:
        -Stew (browned the meat, added everything, done in 30 minutes! The raw potato chunks were fully cooked, the veggies were soft like I like them, etc.)
        -Chicken- I’ll put frozen chicken breasts, seasoning, and chicken broth in and pressure cook for around 25 minutes (at least I think that’s how long?). After 25 minutes it’s fully cooked and easy to shred. I store it to add protein to my son’s dinners, make chicken salad sandwiches for myself, mix with bbq sauce and put on a bun for myself, for my husband to add to salad, etc.
        -Pot roast- brown the roast, add some balsamic vinegar, onions, etc, pressure cook and serve with microwavable pre-cooked mashed potatoes. BAM!
        -“Asian” chicken- cook chicken with garlic, onion, hoison sauce, soy sauce, sriracha, honey, whatever sauce you want. when it’s done (in about 20 minutes) it’s easy to shred and serve over rice with the leftover sauce

        It can also cook rice, and I have friends that have mentioned cooking meat on a tray thing that comes with it, but I use the microwavable bags of frozen brown rice from trader joes so I haven’t done that yet.

        • mascot says

          These are just cook times right? Not the time it takes to come to pressure and cook. Aside from sauteing things first, do you have some secret for getting it to pressure faster?
          I try to remind myself that it would take the oven the same amount of time to preheat so the come to pressure time isn’t that big of a deal.

          • PEN says

            no matter what I am making, I put the pot inside and turn on the saute function immediately. Just warming up the pot seems to but down on the time to pressure significantly

          • Anon in NOVA says

            I’ve never really noticed if it seems to take a particularly long amount of time to come to pressure. I just set it and walk away and notice when it beeps! It’s nice to not have to stand over the stove for the half hour something’s cooking. I DO know it’s faster than my attempts at cooking frozen make-ahead casseroles (which always require over an hour to cook, and even though it’s easy that’s just too long! I have a kid to put to bed!)

      • Anon in NOVA says

        Hello! I posted my favourite things to make above, unfortunately they all involve meat!
        I’ve seen a lot of pinterest/google recipes for veggies. I did the sweet potato casserole for thanksgiving in mine (cut them up, threw some brown sugar and cinnamon in there, pressure cooked, then transferred to a casserole dish to add marshmallows and brown under the broiler for about a minute). I really don’t eat a lot of veggies/vegetarian dishses so I can’t give too many specific examples.

      • GCA says

        Lentil soup without having to babysit the pot! I saute a little onion and garlic in there, throw in carrots/ lentils/ barley/ quinoa/ mini pasta and broth (1 cup of this stuff to 4-6 cups broth, depending on how thick you like it – play around) and set it to pressure cook for 20 minutes.

      • Katala says

        It’s great for cooking dry beans. Also anything you’d want to mash (potato, root veggies etc.).

      • Anonymous says

        You can do whole acorn squash (peel and seed after), halved spaghetti squash (ditto), beans, chili, rice, risotto, soups, etc. i love it.

  2. Mrs. Jones says

    I recently bought the Jag Peri pull-on jeans, and they are awesome. They are high-waist so you don’t risk flashing your underwear.

  3. Betty says

    I began my morning/day/middle of the night by catching the puke of my toddler. Honestly, I have no idea how I knew she was about to get sick, but I managed to catch it in my hands. Did I mention she ate two brownies for dessert (the second one she stuffed in her mouth before I could get to her)? At least she didn’t throw up in my hair this time…. And my son’s bus came 5 minutes early. Fantastic. Is 2016 over yet?

    • AnonMN says

      Ugh, I so feel your pain, although I do not have your puke catching skills yet. We had puke-a-geddon last week. Complete with puke in two car seats, puke in my face, puke in my hair, and then when we thought it was all over, puke at the in-laws country club Santa brunch. Plus ear infection hospital visit, and I was like, I’m done with 2016, let’s just be done now.

      • Betty says

        That sounds horrific. Getting a child’s puke in your own hair is a special parenting moment, no? And yes, let’s just be done with this year.

    • JayJay says

      If it makes you feel better, my son was playing in another room last night and came over to tell me he had just puked in the giant bucket full of Legos. That was fun to clean.

      • Anonymous says

        You probably know this but Legos can go in the dishwasher. I learned that from my daughter’s daycare.

        • Anon in NOVA says

          I certainly didn’t know this fact. They’re so little though… how do you keep the tiny pieces from being sucked down the drain? I wonder if there’s some sort of bag you could put them in.. like a lingerie bag for dishwashers

      • Betty says

        I can only imagine….

        To wash legos in the dishwasher, do you put them in a mesh bag?

    • ChiLaw says

      God I just logged on to post some whines about toddler puke. Mostly I am mad at my husband (SAHD) — wow typing this out makes me realize I might be a monster — because he texted me that he needs tomorrow off from the baby who has been puking since Tuesday. BUT I have also been dealing with her every minute that I have not been at work, including when she was sleeping in my bed and puking on my pillow, and I don’t have the luxury of napping when she naps during the day. When do I get time off, hmm?

      • Anonymous says

        My DH was a SAHD for a year. Our policy was that during my working hours he had childcare duty and outside of those hours we split all family duties 50-50. I usually took a larger share of the childcare duties because I wanted to be with kid. But he wasn’t sleeping in or lounging – if I was childcaring – he was doing laundry or whatever.

        Also, there are two weekend days so maybe he gets tomorrow off, but then you get Sunday off.

  4. CHL says

    I would just like to say that I believe hell must be getting toddlers ready to go outside in cold weather, over and over again. The mittens, the snowpants, the whining… Is it spring yet?

    • Anon in NOVA says

      This is why I loved apartment living when my little one was younger. I can get the mail, take out the trash, and pick up my packages without bundling up myself and a tiny human? score!

  5. Half Baked says

    To tell or not to tell my new baby about Santa (when he’s older)…

    We go back and forth on whether to perpetuate the Santa thing. On one hand, it feels weird just lying, and we like to focus on the reason for the season (as we believe it to be). However, even though I remember being super disappointed when I found out Santa wasn’t real, I’m not sure Christmas would seem so magical now, as an adult, if it hadn’t started out that way. I don’t want to take that away from my kids. Also like the idea of being able to keep kids in line with the threat of Santa putting them on the naughty list ;-).

    • Lyssa says

      I really don’t know of anyone who was actually upset (as in, hurt or didn’t trust their parents) after finding this out. For me, I pretty much understood immediately that it was something that my parents did as part of the magic of Christmas and whatnot, and that it was a good thing (and happily played along for my younger sibs). Personally, the people that won’t do it and consider it an honesty issue always sound a little silly to me, like they have greater issues with honesty than this. My husband pretty much feels the same way, so it wasn’t a hard thing at all for us to decide.

      Though we’ve just realized that, despite how big a deal it seems looking back, it’s really a pretty short time that they’re excited about him. Our just-about-to-turn-4-year-old is still pretty indifferent/scared of him. Maybe next year.

      • Anonymous says

        It’s such a short period – like only between about 4- 7 that they both understand the details (reindeer, writing a letter, hanging stocking).

        I love the traditions associated. I’ve read ‘Twas the Night before Christmas’ every Christmas eve of my life.

        • Anonymous says

          Me too. I put it out on the bookshelf as an option for bedtime stories earlier this month and have discovered that I actually can’t read, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night” without choking up. So, fail. We don’t own Polar Express, because I’m pretty sure I’d just straight up cry through the whole book.

          RE: Santa. I don’t think my parents ever told me he’s not real. I figured it out at some point and didn’t say anything because of my younger siblings. Eventually we all figured it out, but we still insisted on putting cookies by the fireplace and hanging stockings. Some presents still say “from Santa” just because. It’s fun, it’s tradition. It doesn’t need to be a meta thing about truth and honesty.

          • LegalMomma says

            My family is the same re never having the talker Santa’s existence. As the oldest I remember figuring it out, but keeping the secret for my younger siblings. When we are at my parents for Christmas Eve / Morning there are still presents from Santa under the tree – now there are just more people sneaking out of their rooms in the middle of the night – it’s all part of the tradition. My Dad is the reader of The Night Before Christmas – it has been the Christmas Eve bedtime story for as long as I can remember.

      • Anonymous says

        Love this article. I read it early and was going to recommend. Surprised at the suggestion that kids figure it out at age 6-7. Definitely more like 8-10 in my area but it’s heavily mainstream (non-evangelical) Christian here so maybe that contributes? e.g. not a lot of family where Santa doesn’t come.

        I don’t remember being upset about finding out about Santa. I don’t have a specific memory of finding out and I never felt lied to. I understood that Santa was representative of people continuing a tradition of selfless giving and I was excited when I got to be a part of that for my younger siblings.

        Our Santa is minimal though.Nothing like the gluttony of presents my mom bought from Santa. Our kids can ask for three things in their Santa letter. Santa brings between 1-3 depending on what they ask for. One large or three small plus stocking with candy/chocolates. Any big gifts come from us. That way there’s no issues about why our kids got a PS2 from Santa but a poor kid in their class got boots and mittens.

        • Anon says

          Also dealing with the gluttony of my youth issue. My mom went way overboard when we were kids, and still does with my niece. I have a 10 month old and bought him a few outfits, a stuffed animal, a book and a toy (spent under $100). When I excitedly told me Mom she basically made me feel like a bad parent and told me I need to remember how magical it was for me growing up with eleventy billion gifts. She honestly couldn’t see the insanity of suggesting the only reason Christmas was magical for us was because they got us a lot of crap. I point blank told her that wasn’t a lesson I wanted to pass on to my kid.

          • Katala says

            Ugh, this. The magic I remember was connected to traditions – pulling out the ornaments to put on the tree, eating with extended family, family friend’s Christmas Eve party (complete with Santa and a window in the parents’ room on the second floor where we’d all go up to watch him leave in his sleigh – weird how vividly I remember that). I do remember the overwhelm of way too many presents and boredom of having to wait for 2 brothers to open a gift before I got to do another. And ginormous stockings full of dollar store/party store crap. Oh, and the awful, crushing clutter all over the house that was only added to with all those dumb presents. Fun…

            We’re in our first home this year, with a 19-month-old so we’re looking hard at what we really want to pass on. We’ll probably do lights because kiddo loves them, a small tree, one santa present (maybe) and a couple parent presents, family brunch Christmas morning. DH is of the “Santa is lying to them” camp so we’re undecided and may punt that to next year.

          • Anonymous says

            “And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
            stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

            I f-ing love Dr. Seuss. Even though we’re all grown up, my siblings and cousins and I all watch The Grinch (the original cartoon movie) every Thanksgiving weekend. I got a lot of gifts as a kid, but the Whos singing without any presents at all is the message I took away from the holidays with my family. I love Christmas lights, cookies, caroling, all the church traditions, decorations, etc… as an adult, I could take or leave presents. And as a kid, there were only a few things I REALLY wanted to the point of getting excited. If I got even one of those, everything else was just extra stuff.

    • Momata says

      My daughter just turned 3 so this is the first year Santa has had a presence at the holiday. It feels really, really weird to me to be explaining/fabricating it to her. We took her to meet him and explained that he would bring her a present on Christmas if she was good and asked nicely. She’s currently obsessed with The Polar Express book so she’s getting some mythology from there as well. On Christmas morning we will tell her the presents came from Santa. But I can’t seem to bring myself to go for the whole reindeer/sleigh thing. I wonder how I will feel next year – by then I imagine she will have picked more of it up from her friends and cultural references and it won’t be as much on me to “explain.”

      • Anonymous says

        When she asks questions, ‘what do you think?’ and ‘I don’t know” are perfectly acceptable answers that avoid directly fabricating. (e.g. How do the reindeers balance on the roof? I don’t know, I’ve never seen them there).

    • avocado says

      I think most kids figure it out gradually and are not traumatized. I am pretty sure my daughter started to figure it out when she was around five years old, but she still insists on keeping the magic alive. I was the same way when I was a kid. Santa kept coming to our house until I was at least twelve years old, and no one ever openly acknowledged the fiction. There was still a sort of magic to it even though we all were just playing along. And as a parent, it is so much fun to watch your child experience the magic.

      My favorite explanation of Santa is Ma Ingalls’s:

      http://beyondlittlehouse.com/2009/12/24/yes-mary-and-laura-there-is-a-santa-claus/

      • Betty says

        I think my son is starting to get suspicious at almost 6. I remember starting to really question (finding a receipt in my mom’s purse for a present from Santa) in 2nd grade, but I loved the magic and I still do. In my family, we continued to get presents from Santa until… well always. We think of it transition from an actual person to the spirit of Christmas that is in everyone (like the article above). I wasn’t traumatized nor did it shake my church-based faith to find out; I was more in awe of my mother (single mom) who managed to pull it off on her own every year of our childhoods.

        • mascot says

          My dad was in charge of stocking stuffers and didn’t always remove all the price tags. Who knew that Santa bought batteries at the drugstore down the street?

    • Anonymous says

      We’ve been reading the Polar Express, and my son keeps asking if Santa is real. (He just turned 4.) I tell him, Santa is real if you believe he is real. In my mind, this this makes it sort of magical and hopefully makes the falling-out-of-believing stage painless and natural?

    • Francophile says

      Honestly you might not get much of a choice, depending on what they pick up from other people… We are Christian and I strongly preferred not to do Santa (basically for the same reasons you are hesitating), plus I was raised without Santa because I was scared of men with beards and really have no regrets about never having believed, but then last year at preschool my son learned about Santa and he refuses to believe me when I tell him Santa isn’t real. We don’t feed the obsession, we don’t tell him his presents are from Santa or anything, but he believes in Santa *and* that he is going to get to be a reindeer and help pull Santa’s sleigh. So apparently it doesn’t actually matter that much what you decide. Like with so many other parenting issues, actually ;-)

    • mascot says

      As a hypothetical, it seems a bit dishonest. In practice, it’s more nuanced. There’s something to be said for getting to create magic for your child. We do try to keep the Santa gifts on the smaller side and make sure that the really fancy presents come from us. After all, Santa can’t fit all that down the chimney. We’ve had some questions about why we donate toys to empty stocking fund that led to this.
      I never felt betrayed or lied to as a child when it came to Santa. When I believed, it was awesome. I clearly remember the excitement I felt around the holidays. When I knew the truth, I was fine with that too. The Santa thing was just example of how they cared.

      • CPA Lady says

        That’s what we’re doing too. Just the stuff in the stocking is from Santa. I think it’s a fun little thing to do, and I’m going to go along with it, but I don’t intend to make a huge deal out of it or the whole naughty/nice thing. My thought in the long term is to focus on Santa being the spirit of generosity. That’s something we can all believe in, even when we’re old enough to know that a large man in a red suit is not really the one putting the gifts in the stocking.

    • October says

      I have a 16-month old and am going through this whole thought process, as well. I remember as a kid feeling extremely anxious about Christmas because I was convinced I had done too many bad things and would get coal. Still, I think we will do Santa, but try to connect it more with the real person of St. Nick. With regards to your last (tongue-in-cheek) sentence, I heard something recently that I’ve been really turning over in my mind: from a Christian perspective, we focus on the fact that Jesus loves/blesses us even though we don’t deserve it (“are naughty”) so it is kind of strange that we have such a naughty/nice dichotomy with Santa….I think we may skip that part of the tradition.

    • Anonymous says

      I am surely in the minority, but my 4 yo knows Santa is “for pretend.” I tell him it’s something that’s “fun to pretend.” We do celebrate Christmas (he is getting presents) but try to keep it low key. And I am atheist so we don’t have a religious component to it.

    • (was) due in june says

      The part I didn’t like as a kid was, once I had figured it out around 5 or 6, the pressure to keep lying to my younger siblings and cousins about it. I remember thinking… lying is bad… but lying about Santa is good? What???

      My kid will be raised without Santa or Christmas (married a Jew) and I’m really interested in hearing how non-Santa families deal with the inevitable “why doesn’t Santa come to our house?!” and the not blowing the secret for the Santa families. I really, really, really do not want to lie to my kid and tell her Santa is real, but I also want to avoid understandably upset other parents whose children were told by MY kid that Santa wasn’t real.

    • Pogo says

      I felt the same way until I saw my niece and nephew experience Santa for the first time last year (finally old enough to ‘get it’). I had them leave a carrot for the reindeer and cookies for Santa, and they were totally amazed that they got eaten! Santa brought them a tricycle that was all set up, and they were so thrilled it magically came down the chimney like that.

      The joy on their faces really changed my mind. They loved it.

      • Isabelle says

        I grew up without Santa – I guess my parents felt the same way about the lying? We still had tons of Christmas traditions and I never felt like I was missing out. My parents also clearly told me other people believed in Santa and I wasn’t supposed to tell people he wasn’t real if they wanted to believe in it. I don’t think I ever did, although at a certain age I started to find the lying annoying and wonder why other kids hadn’t figured this out yet. To be honest, I will probably do the same with my kids – husband’s family is catholic and not fans of Santa either.

        Long story should – I don’t think you will traumatize your kids by lying, but they can definitely have a magical childhood without believing in Santa.

  6. Meg Murry says

    Help not kill my husband please. Apparently multiple family members have suggested to us the gift of a housecleaning service (either one time or ongoing), and he has turned them down. He thinks “we don’t make enough money for that” and “we shouldn’t outsource that, we are capable of doing it ourselves”. And then he said something along the lines of “I don’t want to outsource *you*, I want us to do it ourselves, its our job as parents.”

    My house is a mess. I am a slob and always have been. No matter what I do, stuff just explodes around me. My husband is neater than I am and better at cleaning up after himself, but not so great about cleaning up after the kids. And because the house is so cluttered, we rarely get past the “pick most of the crap off the floor/table/counter and at least get it to the room it is supposed to be in” stage. Occasionally we get to the “actually organize a room and put things away and then vacuum” stage. My husband does a pretty good job of prioritizing keeping the living room and our kid’s room clean and prodding me to keep it that way. And he always does a quick clean of the bathroom semi-regularly and/or whenever we have guests coming.

    AND our house is older and has lots of emergency fix it-problems that we keep having to address (when you are cleaning up the water and flood of plaster ceiling off the bathroom floor, sweeping the cobwebs out of the corners is not a priority, etc). But because it’s so cluttered, and just straightening up and dealing with disasters takes all the energy I’ve got, our house has admittedly straight up dirty areas. Like the kitchen and bathroom floors could really stand a good scrubbing, the shower my husband uses is disgusting, and there are often random cobwebs or dust bunnies or plaster dust or stray cheerios in corners, etc. In the 5 years we’ve lived here the windows have never been washed, and the bathroom mirrors rarely have. This is not me being a neat freak saying “how can you stand to live like that!” over a few stray dirty things – our house is objectively straight up dirty – and actually, the clutter kind of distracts/covers up the dirt – when everything is put away the dirtiness is even more obvious. It’s not horders level of “CPS should take the kids away or condemn the house” dirty – but it’s bad.

    While I know that we “should” be able to clean it ourselves, the truth of the matter is that cleaning up the house will never, ever be my priority, and that I really don’t want to spend all of the little free time I have cleaning. As it is, my husband does 95% of the cooking and grocery shopping, and my contributions are mainly cereal, PB&J or scrambled eggs, so if I were able to pick up more household stuff, that would be where I want to start, not with scrubbing the bathroom floor.

    How can I convince my husband that hiring someone to come in and clean with help force us to deal with the clutter, and that it will be much easier to *keep* it clean once it’s had a deep clean? Or that it’s not a moral failing to let someone else do some of the most mundane tasks that I hate so very much so that we can spend our free time actually doing something with the kids, or making actually healthy-ish meals instead of ordering pizza *again*, etc? Especially since our family members are offering to pay for it? He doesn’t seem to mind letting my or his mother come over and help my kids straighten their playroom, or to watch the kids while I do some cleaning/laundry/sort clothes sizes or he does big repair projects or outside work. My mother is retired and she has even come over and cleaned some things up while we were at work in the past. Which I’m not proud of, but I appreciate. I’ve tried asking why relying on free family babysitters or paying babysitters so we can do this stuff (or plunking kids in front of electronics or trying to get them to ‘help’ us) is ok [outsourcing childcare so we can clean], but outsourcing cleaning so we can spend time with the kids or do other things is somehow not ok in his mind?

    • Anonymous says

      This is what it boils down to for me: I work to earn money. With my money I buy time with my kids. I buy that time by paying someone else to do tasks. I will 100% not scrub the bathtub instead of spend time with my kids. It’s enough work to keep life/house organized/uncluttered without adding the washing the floors and scrubbing the bathtub every week.

      I know zero families who can afford it at all that do not have a cleaning service if both parents work. Heck, my SIL only works one day a week and has a cleaning service and her husband is a teacher.

    • Momata says

      I think some of the answer may be informed by how you finance/budget and how tight funds are. If I were in your shoes I think I would tell husband, if we don’t start cleaning the house and keep it clean for six months – literally mark it on the calendar – then I am getting a cleaning service. And he needs to drive that bus – if he is willing to do the Fly Lady program or similar, then you have to go along with it, but it’s on him. But we could afford to incorporate that expense without anyone else in the family sacrificing anything. If that is not the case, then maybe that sacrifice needs to initially come from you – if you have a “fun money” pot or similar – and then once you’re in a routine with a housekeeper you can redistribute.

      Also – you need a housekeeper.

    • CHL says

      I had a related dialogue with my husband. I’m messy, he’s a neat freak and grew up in a home where his SAHM had a cleaning service. He is frugal in a good way and I think didn’t “want to pay for something we could do ourselves.” I said, I hear you, but along the lines of the above poster, I make money to do the things I want to do, and this is something I would rather pay someone else to do for me. He said he would clean, I said fine, and then after he didn’t do what he said after 3 weeks, I just got a cleaning lady. And we are both so happy.

    • Anon in NOVA says

      It sounds like you’ve already made the points I would make. AKA “we both work full time, so something has to be outsourced. Would you rather outsource parenting, or cleaning? Because I vote cleaning.”

      Can you talk about it directly to the family members making the offer? Or would that be crossing a line in your marriage? It sounds like the relatives think your house needs to be cleaned, I wish (on your behalf) that he would take the hint!

      Like you said, it really will be easier to keep clean once it’s had a good deep clean. Some suggestions for maintaining the clean if you win and get it deep cleaned:
      -Tilex daily shower spray- you just spray it all over your shower when you’re done and walk out. No rinsing or anything. Will keep mold, mildew, etc from growing and cuts down on the hard water stains too.
      -There’s all sorts of toilet things you put in your toilet once a month or so that keep the toilet bowl clean
      -Robotic vacuum cleaner. They can motivate you to declutter so you can program it to clean while you’re at work. It feels nice to come home to a house that’s freshly vacuumed while you were away.. like the vacuum fairy visited or something
      -Swiffer. Do a duster cloth a couple of times a week, then slap on the Swiffer wet cloth and give the floors a quick swipe. Not as great as “real” mopping, but certainly better than nothing, and it’s all about being real with yourself in terms of what you’ll actually do. Also they smell nice and men are easily fooled by the smell of cleaning products.
      -Keep cleaning supplies everywhere. every bathroom. It’s easier to take a quick swipe at the sink and mirror while your kid is in the bath or shower if the stuff is right there. That makes a huge difference for me.

      I’m sorry, this must be very frustrating. I would be really upset. I hope it gets resolved for you.

    • EB0220 says

      #1 – Does he think that the kids won’t know how to clean if you get a cleaning service? Even if you have a weekly service, there is a lot of cleaning and housework that needs to be done between visits. You have to clean up the kitchen from cooking, load/empty the dishwasher, do/fold laundry, sweep around the table after meals, etc. So there are plenty of chores for them to do. Also, if you aren’t cleaning right now anyway it’s not like the kids are going to learn anything from that. At least with a service, they won’t learn how to clean toilets but the toilets will be clean.

      #2 – Perhaps you could “try it” for a bit after the holidays and “see how it goes”? I bet once he sees how amazing it is he’ll relent.

      #3 – I’m an economist by training, so I feel that I’m contributing to overall productivity by doing what I’m good at (my job, spending time with my kids) and outsourcing something I’m terrible at, but others are good at (cleaning).

      My husband and I are both extremely messy so this was my first act after I got my big girl job after grad school. We’ve never looked back.

    • Em says

      We have a cleaning service and until we got it I had a really, really hard time with the concept. My mom was a SAHM and we had cleaning people my entire life (they could easily afford it), but I am very frugal (borderline Dave Ramsey) and was stuck on the idea of “why would I waste money on something I can do myself.” My husband grew up poor so the concept of hiring someone to come clean our house was insanity to him. When we had a small apartment with no children and pets I cleaned it top-to-bottom every week (although it didn’t get that dirty anyway). Then we got a 2500 sq foot house and two huge, shed monsters, and things started falling by the wayside (even though my husband took up a LOT of the cleaning). Example, we went an entire year without cleaning our shower or the bathroom floors. Then we had a baby and I went back to work full time and all semblance of keeping it together went out the door. My husband and I would both spend 5-6 hours every weekend cleaning while juggling caring for the baby and that was just to get the superficial stuff done (wipe the counters/mirrors, vacuum, etc.). No deep cleaning was getting done ever. When my baby was 7 months I finally had enough and called my parents’ cleaning people to give us a quote. After the first time they came my husband and I both had an AHA moment – we had just paid someone just over $100 to do what would have taken us two entire days to do (assuming someone was watching our baby that entire time). Plus they did it 1000 times better than we did and it lasted much longer because of it. It is an enormous burden off my chest to be able to spend that time with my husband and baby and still have the peace of mind to know my house isn’t disgusting.

      TL;DR – Get the cleaning service. Do it today. Don’t look back.

    • PEN says

      My husband was so anti-cleaning service—until I said, let’s just try it for 2 months. And now, I think he would starve before he would give it up. I bet if you can get someone in there a few times, he will change his mind

      • Em says

        +1 to this. I wrote above how my husband initially thought getting a cleaning service was insanity and now that he have one he has told me he would literally go out and get a second job to keep it if it came down to it.

    • anon says

      Is it possible he thinks that if he relents you’ll get messier or something – is this about him wanting you to be different? I don’t really have great advice but I do commiserate. My husband feels very similarly, but in our relationship I am the cleaner one. I saw how he lived when he was single, and I believe the mess doesn’t bother him. It does bother me, and I resent being the main cleaner. But currently we really can’t afford it so it is off the table for now. I do think he really believes in the value of being frugal and feels empowered by knowing how to do things himself, and I do to, but to a lesser extent. He fixes our car, computer, sews complicated things like suits and coats, cooks, makes bread, builds furniture, etc. I’m an artist and pretty handy but much less into manual labor than he is and less confident in my ability to learn new skills, and I feel like end up doing routine chores while he gets to produce things that don’t need to be redone in a week.

    • Anonymous says

      We have someone come in once a month only. That means that we all have to clean and pick up the rest of the month. But one day a month, all the floors and bathrooms and kitchens are clean at the same time. Heaven.

    • CPA Lady says

      Have you read the blog a Slob Comes Clean? I am also a slob and this lady is awesome– she really gets how we slobs think. And she has some things that have actually been helpful to me, unlike literally every single other thing I’ve read on my journey to magically become tidy. I think she eventually did also hire a cleaning lady and wrote a couple posts on why she decided to do that.

    • Pogo says

      It definitely forces you to deal with clutter because you have to “clean for the cleaning people”. I like it because DH tends to hold onto crap and I can be like, “What’s going on with this magazine? Do we need it?” and cleanse a lot of crap 1x a month.

      It took a bit of convincing because DH came from a SAHM family where she and his grandma did all the cooking/cleaning/housework 24/7. I suffered through 5-6 hours of cleaning a weekend for years until I pointed out that if we travel and have commitments, we might have just one weekend a month free – and then half that time is spent cleaning. That was what did it for him. He realized, essentially, that we *don’t* really have the time for it – not if we want to do anything fun ever.

      • Walnut says

        The cleaners have 100% helped my clutter problem. Even better is that they’ll clean/dust closets if I leave the door open. I can’t even hide clutter by shoving it in closets, because I want the closets cleaned too. Reliably, once every two weeks, I actually pick up all the random laundry and put it away. It’s life changing.

    • avocado says

      I can offer very little advice, mostly just commiseration. My husband is also absolutely opposed to hiring a cleaning service. We keep the house very neat, but he just doesn’t agree with me that cleaning is important. He believes it is a waste of time to clean the bathroom more often than once every six weeks or so, even though waiting that long means that it takes two hours to clean the bathroom and some of the mildew will never come off. He thinks I’m shallow because I don’t feel ready to have company at the drop of a hat because the house is never clean. To top it all off, he thinks that if we outsource anything it should be “his” tasks, not “mine” (our division of labor puts me mostly in charge of cleaning), even though I never finish all of “my” chores” but he finishes “his” on Saturday afternoon and spends the rest of the weekend complaining he is bored. And he would rather put the money in savings than spend it on something so frivolous as a cleaning service.

      You have already tried most of the arguments I can think of. I agree with the others above that if your husband doesn’t want to pay for a cleaning service, he needs to take primary responsibility for tidying and cleaning the entire house. Can you offer to take on more of the meal prep to free up time for him to clean?

      I will also say that decluttering a la KonMari is very helpful. If there isn’t as much stuff, it’s easier to keep neat and clean, and there’s more motivation to do so because you don’t want to let your beautiful tidy space get messy. And developing a daily tidying habit is essential. I put away all the things that come into the house (backpack contents, lunchboxes, mail, gym bags, coats, etc.) and any stuff that’s out on tables and counters as soon as I get home (15 minutes), then do a quick round of tidying just before bedtime (5 minutes). I am trying to teach the kid to do the same, but that’s a work in progress.

    • avocado says

      “And then he said something along the lines of “I don’t want to outsource *you*, I want us to do it ourselves, its our job as parents.” … I’ve tried asking why relying on free family babysitters or paying babysitters so we can do this stuff (or plunking kids in front of electronics or trying to get them to ‘help’ us) is ok [outsourcing childcare so we can clean], but outsourcing cleaning so we can spend time with the kids or do other things is somehow not ok in his mind?”

      These two sentences make me wonder whether you and and your husband have different concepts of what it means to provide for/care for your children. You think it means spending time interacting with them, he thinks it means personally providing for their physical needs. Could that be part of the source of the conflict?

    • Pigpen's Mama says

      One — I’m relieved to hear that so many of you are also messy folks. I’m messy and accept it (I don’t really like messes, but I don’t prioritize cleaning them up). Nothing is gross, just dissorganized. My husband is messy as well, but hates that he is.

      We have a cleaning service every two weeks at my insistance. My husband regularly complains that we have one (he thinks we, i.e., ME, should do it ourselves) and then complains that the house still isn’t clean (subtext, that’s my fault, because…ovaries I guess?). At his worst moments he says we need to cancel it. It may be bad for marital health, but I ignore him.

      So my advice would be to just get one and tell him that’s that.

      Also, this leads into my general thoughts about advising my daughter to marry a man who’s mom had a career and worked when he was at least in pre-school/elementary school. Because one of the major disconnects I have with my H is household responsibilities — he grew up with a SAHM, and most of his close, long-term, friends have SAHM wives or wives who dabble in work, and he just can’t seem to get it in his head that I’m as busy, if not busier, than he is with work. But that’s a vent for another day…(and I realize there are exceptions to this)

    • Anonymous says

      Do you need your husband’s “permission”/blessing to hire a cleaning service? Just do it. Reach out to the family members say that you heard this was something they’d mentioned and would love to take them up on it if the offer is still on the table. Thank them effusively. From personal experience, just a one-time deep clean will make a huge difference (these are often a couple hundred dollars, so depending on your family’s level of generosity, maybe it will be a group gift?), and may go a long way toward convincing your husband that this is a service worth investing in regularly.

      As far as clutter and mess go — I am naturally messy, but the chaos of kids in a small house has turned me ruthless about getting rid of things… when I have the energy to do it. I literally can not cobble together enough time to KonMari things, much as I would like to. But I can do the FlyLady method of setting a timer for 15 minutes and tackling a room with boxes/bags for “put away” “give away” and “throw away” on a semi-regular basis. Pro tip: I find a laundry basket is best of the “put away” because handles.

      My housecleaner is one of the last things I’d strike from my budget. As far as I’m concerned, it’s paying for sanity/happiness/health, which are invaluable. I also like to think of it this way: By paying someone else to clean regularly, I’m giving her a reliable income. My housecleaner is a very sweet, hardworking woman, but she doesn’t speak English very well, and she doesn’t have much formal education. I have a job in the knowledge economy, but not everyone has the resources for that. By paying for services I don’t want to do in my limited time outside of work, I give them a way to earn an honest living. It’s really a win-win.

    • Lorelai Gilmore says

      I told my husband that I needed a cleaner to mop/dust/etc., so that I could spend my limited time decluttering and organizing instead of mopping and dusting. I still spend time working on the house, but the overall house is cleaner because it gets both organized and cleaned.

      I think you should just do it, but if you want to further negotiate with your husband, what if you offered to spend X hours decluttering with him in advance of the cleaner coming? It might assuage his concerns that the cleaning is pointless because the house is too cluttered.

    • Meg Murry says

      Thanks for all the replies everyone. A lot of you have hit many of the touch points already, like that my sister and I both never really learned how to clean well, which my husband attributes to us having someone hired to come clean when we were teens. However, his mother did all thing domestic at their house, so he and his brother never learned to clean either until they were on their own – in fact, I was the one that taught his brother how to do laundry, how to cook things that weren’t prepackaged microwave food, etc. We already live a more extravagant lifestyle than he ever did growing up (he never went on a vacation that wasn’t visiting a family member or camping, they didn’t do restaurants, etc), and I think he feels like hiring someone to clean is something “rich people” do, not us.

      Another part of it is that my husband doesn’t earn a lot of money right now, and he and I are in the middle of busy spells in our jobs. I think he believes things will slow down and we’ll have more time to keep up with the house after the holidays. But I know that if it’s not one thing, it’s another in our lives, and that deep cleaning is NEVER going to be our priority.

      The other added twist to this is that he has the more flexible schedule and works either from home or at very close nearby clients s!tes, so he would probably have to be the one to be there to let cleaners in, etc. I would have to take PTO or otherwise make up any time I missed by staying late, and I know at that point he would say “why didn’t you just take a PTO day to clean yourself then instead of a PTO half day to pay someone else to clean?”

      Oh, and to add an extra wrinkle – due to our circumstances, we would almost definitely have to hire a service or a company, not just pay someone who cleans on the side for cash, which eliminates most of the recommendations I’ve received for friends that have just a “cleaning lady” that doesn’t report the income on her taxes.

      But oh, all I want for Christmas is a clean-ish house that I didn’t have to spend days upon days scrubbing myself (and still not getting great results). I’m hoping maybe I can win him over to hiring a couple of deep cleaning sessions at first, rather than a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly regularly scheduled ongoing commitment.

      • ANP says

        Meg Murry, not sure if you’re still reading but our housecleaners know our garage code and we always leave the door between the house and garage unlocked. We gave them the code b/c it’s easily changed in case we ever hire different housecleaners. Assuming you hire someone/someplace you trust, couldn’t you just give them a code or key?

  7. Onlyworkingmomintulsa says

    Has anyone bought a Rody Hopping Horse for their child? I just realized Santa’s gifts for the almost 4 year old are uneven with the almost 2 year old and am thinking this would be fun for my little guy.

    • EB0220 says

      Yes, we got one last year for our then 1 year old. It was recommended on this site. My kiddo now really plays with it but it took her a while. I think it would be perfect for a 2 year old. My 4 year old likes it too and visitors to the house always play with it.

    • Pogo says

      +1 to visitors always playing with it. We had friends who had one, and supposedly they can hold like 200lbs or something. So every time they had people over, kids and adults alike would spend time hopping around on Rody. I also happen to think theyre really cute.

    • Anonymous says

      Yes, this has been a huge lifesaver as the mom to a very energetic preschooler. We’ve had one since 18months and it is great to release energy. I actually prefer the more matte finish on the generic hopping horse ones ($20ish on A dot com) better than the original Rody which is more slick/sticky and picks up lint.

  8. blue says

    I’m looking for a media console that can double as a toy/bookshelf in our TV/ playroom. Does anyone have a suggestion?

    • (was) due in june says

      Ikea Besta. A bazillion configurations are available. We did one with open shelves on the bottom for kid, with baskets for holding books and toys, and media cabinet with glass doors on top, which has holes in the back for the cords.

      Be sure to wall anchor it.

  9. Anonymous says

    I tried on a pair of JAG jeans a few months ago, and they were uncomfortably tight in the waist, while too large everywhere else (like all pants at the time for me, 6 months postpartum with my second). Comments like this just make me feel bad about my body. Even pre-pregnancy, my waist was always the limiting factor for pants for me.

    • PinkKeyboard says

      It’s a shape issue. Kat is hourglass shaped. I’m definitely a ruler. I frequently find the waist to be a problem.

    • GCA says

      Don’t feel bad! It’s not you, it’s the pants. I have the inverse problem: hips. I have ’em. All pants are too loose in the waist for me, and tight in the hips. Even ponte. Even stretch. I have a collection of fabulous belts.

    • NewMomAnon says

      I have the same problem – if I can find pants that fit through the legs, they pinch awfully in the waist. If they fit in the waist, they sag out in the b*tt. I’ve avoided skinnies for a long time because wider leg pants don’t have the same problem.

      Have you tried the Limited Ideal Stretch pants? I know they aren’t akin to these pull-on skinnies, but I love that they fit everywhere and I don’t have red marks around my waist after a day of wearing them.

      • OP says

        Thanks. I have not tried them, but I don’t have a lot of time for shopping right now. I have this problem with all pants, not just skinnies. I am okay with some bagginess in the butt/thighs, I just don’t want them to be falling down or uncomfortable in the waist. Wider leg pants usually end up looking like clown pants on me, and they just make me look big overall, because they are proportioned to my waist, which is my biggest part.

        I am sensitive today, because the new jeans I am wearing are uncomfortably snug. They are a brand and style that usually work for me, and the next size up is clearly too big, I have to keep hiking them up by the end of the day. Also lately it is cold enough I really want to wear pants.

  10. Pogo says

    Probably a stupid question, but if DH and I each have a dependent care FSA option from our employers, we can use both, right? So theoretically sock away $10K a year total? I know this is how it works for ‘regular’ FSA (medical), DH and I have our own separate accounts because our employers both offer it.

    But I was reading the thread about childcare and everyone was complaining $5K was just a drop in the bucket, so I wondered if it was different.

    • Pigpen's Mama says

      I think it’s $5/family, because I asked HR that a few years ago. Maybe $5/dependent, but I only have the one.

    • CPA Lady says

      Yes, it’s different. It’s $5,000 per year for a couple filing joint. Or $2,500 per year per spouse if you file separately.

      • CPA Lady says

        And I should add that while I personally really dislike Trump, all the CPE I’ve been to in the last month or so that has gone over the possible changes/tax reforms coming in the next year have been very favorable to parents with childcare expenses. As in, they are expecting much bigger deductions or credits related to childcare expenses. So, stay tuned for that.

          • Meg Murry says

            Yes, I’m also in the “I’ll believe it when I see it camp”. And also in the “making people pay for childcare all year long and then giving them a tax break or making people contribute to an FSA and then jump through hoops to get the money back is the kind of thing only people of substantial means can afford”. My employer 5 years ago didn’t offer a childcare FSA, but even if they did, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to afford to front-load it and wait for a reimbursement, at least not without relying on a credit card to fill in the gaps if the reimbursement checks were ever late, etc.

            Plus we are almost, finally done paying for full time daycare. One more year, woo hoo! So it wouldn’t surprise me at all that if these reforms did happen, they didn’t exist until after we no longer really need them, because that’s the kind of luck I have. I still think they should happen though, even if I can’t personally benefit anymore.

      • NewMomAnon says

        Totally disagree. It should really be a dollar-for-dollar deduction as an unreimbursed business expense, because that’s what it is.

        • Pogo says

          Doesn’t that save you less money than an FSA though – I thought FSAs were doubly helpful because they reduce taxable income and allow you to pay for things with pre-tax money.

          I see what you’re saying in the sense that it’s an expense you have to pay so that you can work, like unreimbursed mileage or meal expenses.

          • NewMomAnon says

            Well, I pay $20K a year in childcare expenses. Unreimbursed business expenses are an itemized, below the line deduction, subject to the 2% of income floor. That means I could deduct nearly $18K, which is significantly more than the current standard exemption (even adding in kiddo’s exemption as head of household). So it would make sense to itemize in this situation, and I think the benefit would be higher than the $5K pre tax FSA.

            I have heard the new administration saying they would raise the standard exemption to $30K. If that was the case, then you’re right – itemizing daycare expenses for one child is likely lower than that exemption, and you’d get bigger bang for your buck with the $5K pretax FSA. Two kids could swing that calculation though, and three would definitely swing it.

            Basically, the $5K pretax is better for families with higher tax rates and fewer children. A below the line deduction would probably benefit families with a lower AGI or more children because they would lose proportionately less to the 2% floor. But that’s my off-the-cuff, Friday afternoon analysis, and would welcome other thoughts.

          • Pogo says

            Thanks for the explanation – I definitely do not claim to be a tax expert, hence why I was asking!

    • Onlyworkingmomintulsa says

      I so wish! Married couples have a combined $5k limit even if each are offered the FSA for dependent care at their employers.

ABOUT

WORK WITH US

SERIOUS STUFF