Family Friday: Pop N’ Play Portable Playard
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My husband and I bought this over the winter when we were trapped in the house with a baby that was crawling and pulling himself up on everything. We started calling it “the cage.” Other friends say it reminds them of an Ultimate Fighting ring. However you want to describe it, I love this thing. We set it up in the living room and put some toys inside, and it bought us a few minutes of dinner-cooking, laundry-folding, or shower-taking (you know, parental luxuries). Once you get the hang of it, it’s super easy to collapse and set up, and it’s very lightweight. We’ve brought it to my parents’ house, which is only moderately baby-proofed, and this summer we even brought it to the beach. It’s $68.99 at Amazon, and the removable canopy (which blocks 98% of UVA/UVB rays) is an option for $19.22. Ours came with it included, but if it didn’t, I wouldn’t have purchased it separately. Summer Infant Pop N’ Play Portable Playard
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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?
I live in an extremely tiny NYC apartment with a very tiny kitchen. I am trying to figure out how much space I should allocate for baby stuff in the kitchen. We will be moving out of of this current apartment when the kid is 5 or 6 months though so this isn’t for all baby food things forever on just what we will need birth to 6 months. I plan on breastfeeding and will be home for the first 6 months, but will be doing some bottles and pumping stuff because my husband will be watching the kiddo starting at 6 months and we need to be ready for that transition.
How much space do I need to clear? I tend to be on the minimalist side and have a dishwasher. Debating if I should get like an Ikea Raskog cart or something to hold all of the stuff or if thats overkill.
Can anyone else speak to this playard? It’s been on my wish list for a bit. Baby isn’t on the move yet so I don’t need it, but with my older child in activities, I’ve been eyeing it for a place to contain the baby when we go to older kid’s games/track meets etc.
Tricycle or other wheeled vehicular transport recs for an 18 month old? We like to go on long walks but he’s getting bored and restless in his stroller. TIA!
Advice needed – we’re hiring an after school nanny to come between 6 – 8 hours a week. When we hired her, we clarified that we would be paying on the books/taking out taxes. She’s all yes, that’s what I always do. I have her tax forms now and we’re getting ready to get into our normal routine, but for her trial sitting (a few hours), I paid her cash because we weren’t set up yet, and then she sent me an “invoice” for the gross amount. Now I’m wondering if we’re on the same page. Will definitely send her the tax forms and have a conversation, but am I missing something here in terms of what she might be thinking? Everything I know says that I should be W-2ing her, but she’s almost presenting herself like a daycare facility. Thanks!
Having so much trouble picking baby names… we aren’t finding out the sex so we have to pick 2!
Did anyone else really struggle with this? I’m so set on not picking anything that’s too popular right now. I hate trendy-sounding names, too.
If you could purge your kids’ toys down to 10 items (a combination of toys that your kids actually like and toys which don’t drive you crazy…), what would you keep , and for what ages? We are drowning in toys and I fantasize about doing this. Anyhow, my list (for a 6.5 year old and an 1.5 year old) would be:
Magnatiles
Fisher-Price record player
Toy ambulance
Toy fire truck
Stomp rocket
Wooden building blocks
Play kitchen (with minimal accessories- like one frying pan and a spoon)
Toy castle (and minimal figurines)
Melissa and Doug toy shopping cart
Ball and hammering toy
Definitely on the pitch list: stuffed animals, puzzles, Calico Critters, and Legos. But I’m not ready for that fight yet….
I have a first world problem. I’m 7 months postpartum, weigh 5 pounds less than I did pre-pregnancy and I don’t feel like I look any different when I look in the mirror, but none of my regular pants fit. Some can button but are very uncomfortable, but most of them I can’t even button. I bought a couple bigger pairs of pants to get me through the transition, but it seems like the “transition” is lasting forever. Do I need to buy a new wardrobe? Or is it possible that my body will return to it’s original shape at some point in the future? How I can weigh less but be bigger? I’m so confused.
Friday question: am I the only person who has CNBC on in their office all day long and is tired of hearing the advertisement for Peyronie’s disease????? UGH!
I get that I am a unicorn of a woman in this industry but do I have to be reminded with this ad every 10 minutes?
Who else is excited for the first day of school? We have had a nice summer with a relatively low degree of day camp hassle, but I am so ready for fall. This morning there was a hint of crispness in the air. We have purchased the giant bagful of paper towels, tissues, Clorox wipes, and hand sanitizer to drop off at open house. Kiddo has picked out her first-day outfit. I have even gotten a sneak peek at her class schedule. I cannot wait.
The tradeoff is that the beginning of school means that sports competition season is just two months away. Not looking forward to that part.
TMI question – can we talk about gardening post baby? I had a baby almost 5 months ago and this activity is still super painful to the point that we haven’t really accomplished it. We’re doing other things, so we’re both satisfied and DH is very patient and doesn’t want me to be in pain, but I want to get back to a normal gardening life (and from a practical perspective, we want a second kid, so we have to do traditional gardening at some point). I had bad tearing when I delivered, but I was healed enough to do all my normal activities except gardening (including riding a bike) within a couple weeks. I only have a couple friends I’m comfortable discussing this with and their attitude has been “oh yeah it hurts the first time but then it’s fine” but that hasn’t been my experience. Any advice or commiseration? Do I need to just push through the pain?
My experience has been similar to yours, except we didn’t try until 10 months after baby was born. At first it was painful on the outside, but that has gone away. It still remains painful deep inside so everything has to go super slow and stay shallow. Truth be told, I don’t know if it’s getting better. We’ve only done it 3 or 4 times in the last 7 months.
Similar experience. BF’ing and my OB essentially said that my V is like a “90 year old woman’s” hormone-wise as a result. She recommended lots and lots of lube. Mixed results on my end.
My husband and I are going on an overseas trip sans kids next month. (Woot!) We’re leaving the kids and the au pair with my parents state-side. My stepdad asked about having some sort of signed (notarized?) document to say they can authorize medical care if an emergency comes up and they can’t reach us. Has anyone done anything like this? I’m guessing if they show up at an ER with a bleeding kid, the doctors will treat him without waiting around for legal niceties. I’m happy to draft up something and probably will, just in case, but no idea how durable that sort of thing is and whether it really matters. Presumably the medical staff will take care of any emergency, and then I’d be shocked if we were totally unreachable (we’ll be Europe, in major cities, so very reachable via technology) for any real length of time. But certainly want my parents to have whatever authorization they need to keep the kids safe. Thoughts?
former healthcare lawyer here—if you have a preferred health system, it makes life much easier if you use their form and get it on file with them ahead of time. that way the medical staff don’t have to check with the risk managers or lawyers if what you wrote up is sufficient.