Family Friday: Take-Along Tool Kit

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My youngest loves his tool set. Here’s one that’s similar to his, but a bit more portable.

This 24-piece wooden tool set from one of my favorite toy companies, Melissa & Doug, includes child-sized tools and nails, screws, and boards with holes for hours of imaginative play. (My kid uses his tools to “cut” our hair.)

In addition to promoting hand-eye coordination, the bright colors and multiple pieces are great for color recognition and counting.

Cleanup is easy! Just put everything back into the toolbox for next time.

This Take-Along Tool Kit is $11.99 at Target.

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 interestworking mom questions asked by the commenters!

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We are going to the Caribbean this summer with my just-turned 3 year old. He has swum in pools a few times before, always with one of us holding him (and he loved it!). Should we get him a life jacket for going in the ocean? We can’t get him into swim lessons before the trip, unfortunately (they booked up so fast!).

Childcare question for everyone. My husband and I feel like we are drowning. We have two daughters- a one year old and a kindergartner. My little one is in daycare (a great center but they don’t offer food so lots of prep time packing lunches with bite size pieces). For complicated reasons that I won’t bore you with, my kindergartner is at school from 9:00 to 4:00 but is not in before and after care. We just don’t feel like we have enough childcare to keep up with everything (jobs, laundry, cooking, etc.) My question is- would getting a nanny be a total gamechanger? Is that the best option? Or do I stick with daycare and try to fix the issue with before and after care next year? Thanks so much for your insight!

My 4 year old (just turned 4 two months ago) is a handful. At a dr visit this morning she was just difficult – hiding under the exam table, refusing to open her mouth, etc. so my husband was like is this normal and the dr said we could try play therapy but in terms of adhd it would really depend on how she is elsewhere.

At school we get pics of her sitting at a table and eating (struggle at home with this), focusing on crafts etc, and the teacher says she is the “helper” who helps find things and puts away the drinking cups. So she is an angel at school.

At home she often doesn’t listen and has to be bribed to do basic things. Fights us on getting dressed etc. She wants things her way and interrupts a lot. When she wants to she does focus for age appropriate amounts of time playing a game or doing a puzzle or drawing or building. She is very high energy compared to other kids her age. My gut says this is personality, and I can’t compare to kids with a totally different temperament. Her spiritedness is just a lot sometimes.

What would play therapy do at this age? My husband seems more concerned than me on this but maybe I am making excuses for her.

Oooh, I said I would report back on the multi-generation spring break cruise, and the restaurant thread above reminded me. My kids are 5, 7 and 9, and we went on a Royal Caribbean cruise with one grandparent from each side of the family (the last time they’d seen each other was at our wedding a decade ago, but they got along great). Several sea days, 3 ports including one day at the Royal Caribbean private island.

TL/DR: It went really well! We’ll definitely do it again. It was a good mix of family, couple and alone time, and I got to relax while someone else did all the cooking and cleaning for a week. The kids loved exploring the ship, sampling the entertainment (bingo, silent disco, and a couple stage shows were favorites), and towel animals.

Kids club offered care 9-12, 2-5, and 7-10pm, with the option to pay a negligible cost per hour for late night care until 1am. My kids loved the kids club and usually went once per day, and made friends there whom they’d meet to play with in the pools or the Seaplex, too. Seaplex is a glorified sports deck with an arcade, video game room, ping pong, foosball, bumper cars, etc etc. After the first day or two, we were comfortable letting the kids head off to Seaplex together without a chaperone while we finished a leisurely meal. They loved having the independence, we loved having some quiet time. We also spent a lot of time at the pools, and with 4 adults available it was easy to leave one or two to keep an eye on the kids while the others did their own thing.

We did the early dinner seating and ate in the main dining room almost every night, although the kids also loved buffet at lunch. The kids got a huge kick out of dressing up, perusing the menu and giving their dinner orders to the server, and generally practicing being fancy. We do not usually eat multi-course meals with complicated place settings, etc so this was all very novel and exciting. They did very well sitting politely at dinner, except the youngest, who got overtired by the end of a busy week. We had our own table, but they would not have been disruptive to anyone else (most-nights) and we got compliments from some of the neighboring tables about how nice it was to see kids in that setting. yay!

I’m throwing a party for my soon-to-be one year old. This is a first kid, so we have tons of baby toys, but not much for older kids. If we assume children attending will be ages 2-6 for the most part, what do you do to keep the older kids occupied? We have a big outdoor space with trees and a pond, but no “kid area/activities”. I don’t have an objection to getting like, soccer goals and a ball, maybe a tree swing, some games or something, since we’ll use them when our kid gets bigger, but I also don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on party games. We’ve never hosted more than one family’s kids at a time, so normally we just, you know, show the kids the shopvac and let the dog chase them around the house.

I need to transition my toddler out of the crib soon. Any advice for next steps (mattress on the floor, toddler bed, twin size bed)? Toddler will turn 2 this summer. This transition is happening sooner than I would like, but this is a 99% percentile kid who is already capable of climbing out of the crib and I don’t want to risk a concussion or other injuries from a fall.

Can we talk about bullying? My middle-schooler is going through it right now. The school is being cooperative and taking measures to prevent things and punish the kids who are responsible, but I’m not feeling overly optimistic and positive about how all this will shake out. Aren’t they just going to retaliate? My kid was very reluctant to even tell the principal/guidance counselor about who was involved, for this reason. To make matters more complicated, DS recently came out to DH and I. He is not out to anyone at school, but has still gotten loads of the stupid “are you gay” insults handed his way. Not surprisingly, he is currently being treated for an anxiety disorder (a combination of a comorbid condition and also the stuff he’s dealt with this year).

I’m really not okay. I’m stressed to the max. And I’m angry and emotional that my kid has been treated this way, off and on throughout the school year. I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone this week with the guidance counselor, and have taken time off work to just be at home when my kid comes home from school so he has a safe place to land. DH was very helpful in one of those conversations with the counselor because he was able to push and ask questions when I was shutting down and trying to process everything they were telling me. Wish they’d call him first, honestly. My concentration is absolutely shot, which is not good, and I’m falling behind at work. I haven’t confided in friends because I want to protect my kid’s privacy and because I’m sort of embarrassed about how bad things really are.

So, two questions:
1) How do I make sure our home and family life compensates for the total sh!tshow at school?
2) How do I get myself back on track? We have an extended family event this weekend and I’m honestly dreading it. I don’t feel like I have the energy to be positive and happy right now.

And to head off other questions: Would love to change schools, but don’t have many alternatives. Kid has a 504 plan so very reluctant to move to a private school. In our area, they do not have a great reputation for helping kids with learning differences.

Happy Friday thread: celebrating the milestones that really matter. Last night four-year-old used the potty in the middle of the night by himself and didn’t scream for a parent to help (watch) him. This feels momentous.

I was awake because 2-yr-old was crying about something else of course.

Reporting back on yesterday’s onions request… kiddo did not eat cooked onions as they were different from what he had at nursery. Wonder if they had onion rings?
We were talking about school and he said ‘And then I’ll have my lunchbox….’. Going to wait til school starts to break it to him that I’ve not packed lunch for the past 5 years (there was a 3 month period where I filled up those stupid little bentos and it turned out he was just eating the school lunch) and have no intention of starting now. School lunch is FREE and made by someone who is not me.

I’m going to take 13 and 10 year old boys to NYC for a very quick weekend trip (mainly to see Hamilton after a devastating second cancelled show from tour). My mother may join us, she can’t walk a ton due to stamina. Where would you stay? Any great activities for boys that age I should consider for the bit of downtime around the show? I read the recent thread that focused more on young kids and am looking at the hotels rec’d so would love to know if the advice changes with older ones. Thanks!

I just started a new job afte mat leave and I am a few months in and I already am kind of bored. Mt last job was at a small company and incredibly intense, but I took this gig at a big company for the lower intensity and stress but now I cannot seem to adjust. I get home and spend time with my kiddo, which is what I wanted, but I miss the level of responsibility I used to have. Has anyone else gone through this type of adjustment period and how long did it take to adapt?

Getting botox for the first time today, very excited!
I scheduled it forgetting I’m presenting somewhere in person on Monday. Fingers crossed there are no issues…

For those who’ve had a kid “graduate” from occupational therapy, how did you know it was time to stop going? We sought it out a few months ago and it seemed really helpful in the beginning, because we got a bunch of ideas for things to do at home. But I’ve never really felt like the weekly sessions themselves did a whole lot, so now that we have the info about what to do at home, it kind of feels like it’s not very worthwhile and it’s incredibly disruptive to our lives (we can only get appointments in the middle of the workday). Also this might be controversial, but I kind of feel like OTs over-diagnose? They identified my child as having all these muscle problems because she sometimes sits in the “W” position, but based on photos we get of her preschool class more than half the kids sit this way. So while I definitely don’t want to ignore something that’s a real issue, I’m not really convinced she’s way behind her peers.

How old was your child when they could sit nicely for dinner – at home? at a restaurant?

Extra credit for when you could get them to sit at a restaurant without electric babysitters.

I am doing some trip planning, and trying to be realistic about what I can expect from my 2.5 year old twins….

Feeling sad today because I learned yesterday that I need to have some dental work done that will delay TTC for baby no.2. We are already late trying amongst our friends with DS turning three this summer but I felt fine with it so far. But now the fact that we have to wait a lot longer than planned really bums me out.
Five years seems like a really big age gap.