Make My Life Easier Thursday: Switch Smart Plug
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I owe this pick to my husband. I never would have thought to buy a gadget like this, but it’s amazing for people like me who are always wondering, “Did I remember to turn off the [insert appliance name]?” Especially now that we have a baby who sometimes sleeps with a space heater in his room, this has eliminated that internal gasp I have on the subway when I can’t remember if I turned it off — and the desperate prayer that my house isn’t burning down when I’m at work. This is a special outlet that you can control with the WeMo app and/or Alexa to turn it on or off remotely, or even set the outlet on a timer for the lamps in your home. It’s made my life easier in so many ways, and we probably have about five or six of them. It would never have occurred to me to spend money on outlets, of all things, but this product is a game changer for me. Now I can devote my mental energy to more productive things. The plug is $35 at Amazon. WeMo Switch Smart Plug
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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?
Thank you for your reply! That’s what’s crazy – I have an extremely distinctive name, being both 2nd generation American and of a minority religion, so there is no real way it could confuse me with someone else; my name is very uncommon even in my parent’s country of origin. This is why I’m particularly incensed and freaked- with such a distinctive name, this information might read as more credibly about me. It’s got my race wrong, my religion wrong, and also indicates that I “may” have all kinds of criminal history.
From what I’ve read, the only way to get completely removed from this site is to pay. It’s such a scam.
Is anyone familiar with this horrid site? I googled myself and my name came up on this site with all kinds of inaccurate information – it also includes a “reputation score” which a paid subscription allows you to improve. I’m livid. Supposedly it culls information that’s “already out there” but that’s not the case with me – it’s got all kinds of things wrong about me, and it’s misinformation that no other site seems to have.
I need some feedback from the IVF veterans. My clinic isn’t giving me much feedback right now. It’s my first IVF after to IUIs. The second resulted in a very brief chemical pregnancy. I’m on 300 Gonal F and 150 Menopur. Today will be the 7th day of injections. I’m starting Cetrotide tonight. At my scan this AM, I had one follicle at 17.7, one at 16.4 and one at 13.4 on my left and nothing on my right. I had about the same number of follicles taking Clomid for the IUIs! I’m really discouraged but the nurse wouldn’t say it was bad news necessarily. I’m continuing the drugs and going back for monitoring on Saturday. Could I grow more by then? If I just have two follicles, is it worth going through with they cycle? I mean, it only takes one but chances would be so low, right? Our infertility is totally unexplained. I’m 36.
I’m traveling for work, leaving my 6 month Old at home for the first time. I haven’t done a great job pumping as often as she eats and got a clog. It doesn’t hurt yet but there’s a big limp on one side and I’m seeing decreased output when I am pumping. I’m in all-afternoon meetings today and have a 6-hour flight tomorrow and am terrified I am going to get mastitis. I had it earlier this year and have never felt that horrible. Anything I can do when pumping and nursing frequently, hot showers, or warm compresses aren’t really an option?
I’m sure this has been covered before, but am having trouble finding the threads. What kind of things should you ask when touring daycares? DD will be almost a year old when she starts.
I second the recommendation for a psychological evaluation. We have a 3.5 year old who bites, spits, kicks, hits, throws hard objects at people and has intense tantrums that often last over an hour. She is also an extremely picky eater, resulting in severe constipation. The psychologist recommended a structured preschool (she got kicked out of her first daycare after three days for disruptive behavior), occupational therapy and play therapy.
So far, just going to preschool and therapy has curtailed some of the behavior and has motivated her to become potty trained. I find that she does best when she has plenty of sleep, lots of exercise and a really healthy diet. The occupational therapist said that she is physically very weak and her teachers describe her as very sensitive. I hope that her acting out is because she feels frustrated and we can help her learn to express herself verbally rather than by having a tantrum.
A good friend of ours is six months pregnant, and just found out the baby has a rare and very serious heart defect, which will require surgery immediately after birth and subsequent surgeries in the next few months. The condition can be, but is not always, survivable. There have been past threads about how to show support for families in the NICU, and I’ll search for those as the due date approaches, but is there anything I can do in the meantime to show support? Of course I’ll check in regularly with a general “how are you doing” to give her / her husband an opening talk about it if they want. Anything else?
I am not a fan of MLMs. I don’t have any good friends that do MLMs, so to date I’ve just had to passively decline FB invites or “unfollow” acquaintances who are into MLMs and post on facebook about them.
However, I’m starting to enter into this grey area where friends of mine have FRIENDS that do MLM, and my friends are agreeing to host parties, to which I get an invite. I actually really like my friends hosting, and the groups of people invited are typically all people I wish I could see more/ever, but we all have kids and so it doesn’t happen.
Do you y’all have this in your life? I feel torn between going to the party despite not liking MLMs generally, and genuinely wanting to go and catch up with my friend & the other attendees (even it it means listening to a sales pitch). Kind of like a time share pitch in exchange for a cheap vacation, I suppose. I certainly don’t feel obligated to buy anything, since my friend doesn’t make money (and isn’t in it for them money for sure- these ladies are doing their own thing).
I’m not sure if this is an option for you – but is there any way you could hire a night nurse or a sleep consultant for a short period of time? I also think that BC’s idea of getting a bed for the toddler is a good one. Last tip – is your toddler consuming a lot of dairy? Obviously milk at dinner/before bedtime is common (and helps fill them up), but dairy can cause nightmares in a lot of people. We’re JUST getting over the hump where my 13 month old wanted to co-sleep every night in Jan-Feb (so we alternated nights), so I feel your pain.
We have lots of smart devices and we do have one Wemo plug. I don’t like that they aren’t tamper-resistant.
What we’ve done is re-wired many of the house lights into a smart-outlet (which you can do with tamper resistant outlets)…we have three young kids and did it when #2 was a newborn. Every outlet in our house is tamper resistant, and all the overhead lights in all the rooms that have them are “smart.” It’s especially great for the basement and outside lights- I can check from bed if they are turned off, and/or program them all to go off at, say, 11pm.
I think a Wemo plug would be good for a one-off, but it’d drive me a little batty to have that many things on my phone to check on.
For those of you that have a cleaning service, how much do you clean (or not) in advance of the cleaners? I always find myself doing the night-before scramble of cleaning up ALL THE JUNK so that they can actually clean the house. It does keep the house tidy but…it exhausts me. The one time I didn’t do it, they just moved all the junk into piles and cleaned around, and then I/kids/DH put the junk away later. I happen to know it took them a lot longer, though, since sometimes I WFH when they are here. If I leave the junk out, should I leave a nice tip?
Just left the doctor with my 2 year old, who has hand foot mouth. Taking him home for the rest of today and have to keep him out of daycare tomorrow. Any advice? Of course he’s contagious and can’t go anywhere, but other than that he seems to feel alright, happy, etc.
My biggest concern is that he has a 5 month old baby brother, who is currently at daycare, but I have no idea how to keep them separated. I’m nursing the baby so I can’t send the baby anywhere. Husband is out of town but gets home at 5:00. I’ve asked him to pick the baby up from daycare… anything else I can do to make toddler feel better and keep baby from getting sick?
Has anyone dealt with an unusually aggressive toddlers? We had our second meeting with our 2-year-old son’s daycare yesterday because they have seen a major uptick in him hitting kids and pulling their hair. It isn’t during a specific time of day, isn’t targeted toward a single kid or a couple specific kids, and is almost always unprovoked. They are trying some specific things, but didn’t think there was much we could do at home to address it, since he doesn’t do this at home. They suspect he is doing it to get a reaction from the other kids and the teachers. They expressed that his intelligence level is high for his age, and that this is contributing to their typical responses not working (he knows what he can do, how to manipulate the other kids and to some extent the teachers, etc.). I have no idea what we are going to do if they end up kicking him out, or if another daycare would even accept him.
But really, the answer is always LJ
https://shop.nordstrom.com/s/kate-spade-new-york-faux-leather-moto-jacket-toddler-girls-little-girls/4813493
Beware: Shallow request coming.
My family is headed to Paris for vacation next month. Currently, my daughters (3 and 2) have Columbia fleece jackets during light-jacket weather. My husband noted yesterday that these are not the most, umm, attractive jackets and they will be in all of our pictures of Paris since the weather during May is typically 60s.
Any suggestions for cute toddler jackets for Paris? It seems so silly searching or “sleek” styles for my toddlers, but I’m with my husband on this one. we will have a LOT of pics and i’d like the outfit coverings to be cute!