Washable Workwear Wednesday: The Janette Blazer in Light Ponte

Afternoon vent: incompetent cable company workers busted the water main and we are without water. My husband refused to go to the gym half a mile away for his afternoon constitutional, so he has already used up the single flush on one of the three toilets in the house. And he has just started the keto diet so I don’t know what kind of restaurant we will be able to find for dinner. It is going to be a long night.

Can anyone recommend a 12-pound weighted blanket with a removable microplush or minky cover? We have one from the Threshold brand at Target that is perfect, but it seems to be discontinued and we need a second one. I cannot find anything similar anywhere.

I post occasionally, and need some reassurance today. DS (3) has been working with his current ST since early November on expressive language and articulation, and is making really solid progress. Kid is putting sentences together – still a lot of one and two-word utterances, but that’s also being a small child. I know articulation is likely a longer game, so the focus is more expressive language.

For parents with kids that had ST for minor delays – when did you feel that your kids “caught up” on expressive language?

I have a four month old and consistently got ads for Lovevery on Facebook and instagram. The toys look interesting and the advice about what to do with a baby at each age would be great. But it seems so expensive for what it is. Has anyone got the playkits? Was it worth it? Or are the ads just playing into my lack of self-discipline when shopping because of sleep deprivation?

My child is in kindergarten, and recently had a playdate with a new friend where the parent brought a small hostess gift – a whole pie. Silly question, but should I be reciprocating when I bring my kiddo to their house? Fwiw, my kiddo and I have been to the other family’s house previously and had not brought anything, because I didn’t think this was a thing on playdates, but I don’t want to be rude.

Can anyone help me navigate talking about death/religious tradition around death to a very smart, inquisitive almost 6 year old?

DH’s grandmother passed away last week and we’re flying to their city for services in two weeks. DD knew great-grandma and knows she died. We’ve had a lot of good conversations about death since she passed last week. DD has asked some smart questions and while she is sad great-grandma is gone, she’s mostly just very matter of fact about the Q&A so far. She know great-grandma is in Heaven with grandpa (DH’s dad died right before DD was born).

DH and I are reformed Catholics. Both confirmed, I even went to Catholic HS, but did not get married in the church. We are strongly opposed to the Catholic church for a variety of probably pretty obvious reasons. We do have immediate family who still goes to Mass weekly (including DD’s own generation), are baptized (she is not), etc. I think I’m still grappling with my own faith identity, tbh, which is complicating my confidence in how I plan to talk about all of this with DD.

Here are the real questions:
(1) Great-grandma has been cremated and will be in an urn at the services. DD knows about being buried but cremation is a whole other topic. Thoughts on how to address?
(2) The Catholic funeral mass itself. DD has never been to church but for cousins’ baptisms which are more chaotic than anything, so they never generated big questions from her, plus she was younger for those. I’d say we are spiritual but not religious at this point in our lives, though DD doesn’t know what God is or the concept of a higher being (feel like that’s a major failure on my part but it just never really came up?? I feel like I really failed at this part of parenting…).

We want her to go because the whole family will be there and I just don’t think avoidance is the right answer. Plus I have a newborn that I’ll be baby wearing and she’ll hate to be the odd man out, left with a babysitter she doesn’t know. I think she’s mature enough to handle but I just am at a loss of how to talk about what she’ll be seeing at the Mass. She will have lots of questions that I’m willing to answer but need some talking points/guidance. Thoughts on 1 or 2, or just generally?

If you had a crib that converted to a roller bed (meaning that you could take one of the crib’s sides off), how long did your child stay in the toddler bed? Or, maybe a better question is, how big were they when you moved them to a regular bed? Especially looking for answers where it was your youngest/only child so you didn’t have to reuse the crib for another child. My only is 4.5 and is currently in his toddler bed. He never gets out of bed unless it’s to use the bathroom, so part of me is hesitant to make any changes. However, I was thinking that maybe as part of him turning 5 we’d move him to a real bed.