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Coming off of Budget Thursday, we have a budget-busting backpack. At $840, this bag is way more expensive than what I usually post about here, but I saw someone recommend this in Martha Stewart Living, and immediately googled it. This is a gorgeous bag that comes in many different colored leathers. I also love how it can be a backpack and also convert to a shoulder bag without any style getting lost. I can see saving this one for a treat when you get a raise, bonus, or any other sort of milestone — or just because YOLO. The style and lack of obvious branding makes this seem timeless for me. Definitely wishlisted. The Sling Backpack by Lotuff Leather
A couple of more affordable options are from AllSaints ($398) and Nordstrom’s house brand ($199); if you’re interested in a diaper bag version, try Babymel ($90).
Sales of note for 3.26.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything plus extra 20% off purchase
- Eloquii – 50% off all workwear
- J.Crew – Annual Spring Event: 40% off sitewide; extra 40% off sale styles
- Lands’ End – 10% off your order
- Loft – 50% off Lou & Grey; 30% off new arrivals
- Nordstrom: Spring Sale: Up to 50% off
- Talbots – 25% off your purchase, including markdowns
- Zappos – 37,000+ 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 – 40% off everything; extra 10% off your purchase with code
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 30% off swim; up to 30% off HannaJams
- J.Crew Crewcuts – 40% off sitewide; extra 40% off sale; 50% off kids’ styles
- Old Navy – 50% off Easter deals
- Target – 20% off Easter styles for all; up to 30% kitchen & dining; up to 25% off TVs; BOGO 50% off shoes & slippers for the family; $100 off select Apple products
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
Anon says
Any recs for brands or retailers for blackout shades that are stylish and functional? We had a blind+blackout curtains setup that worked well but my toddler has transitioned to a bed so we need to reduce the hazards.
Anonymous says
We’ve had good luck with Ikea (multiple styles). We still do a blind + curtain set up but have a cordless blind. If it were me, I’d look at replacing the blind (if a cord is the issue) versus switching to curtains entirely. Kiddo’s curtains are cheapies from Amazon currently. We’ve done the Ikea ones without blinds in other rooms with success.
Anonymous says
Oops – just realized you said shades and not curtains. Sorry. We have some Levelor onces from Lowe’s and really like them. They cut them to size for you.
Anne says
I really liked the cordless ones I got from home depot.
anne-on says
+1 – the cordless ones you cut to size at Home Depot worked really well for us.
Quail says
+2 – these worked great for us too. My husband said they were easy to install.
AwayEmily says
You may want to try doing just the curtains for awhile to see how it goes. My kids needed TOTAL DARK to sleep when they were babies but then were fine with a bit more light once they got to be around 18 months.
OP says
I agree, my 2 year old needs it blacked out. However, she got out of her bed last night and tugged on the curtains in an attempt to pull them down.
If she didn’t crawl out the crib, I would have kept her there as long as I could.
Anonymous says
Pottery Barn Kids has blackout shades. I would note that they did not have samples for some of the Bali brand styles. I intended up ordering almost the same shade from blinds.com bc I could see a sample and further customize
rosie says
We have blinds through Costco (Graber brand, they will have a local company that you work with I think). Ours are light blocking and thermal and cordless — you push them up from the bottom or down from the top. However, because of how they fit in the windows, if you have a room that gets direct morning sunlight, you may want to have curtains as well, so not sure it solves your problem. We get little beams of light in between the blind and the window frame. It’s possible they were not done exactly right, but I think it just may not be possible to have them totally flush. And we have three separate windows so there are three blinds — maybe less of an issue if you are able to just do one longer one.
Pogo says
We have Comfortex honeycomb blackout shades. They’re great, and no cords.
Anonymous says
We have fabric blackout roller shades from Hunter Douglas in our kids room. They look really good and do not have cords. You do have to go through a show room to order – but they will measure and install. This isn’t the cheap vinyl roller shades that you get at home depot. The back is some man made material (maybe even vinyl?), but the front is fabric.
If you want to DIY and save money, look at blinds.com. In our last house we had several different versions of shades from there and liked them. Our only issue was the installation (done by me) was not exactly level. If I did that again I would hire a handy man to install correctly.
We also have HD silhouettes in our non-kid bedrooms and love them. They are also blackout shades, but give more options than just open or closed. There is a sheer vane component that I have a hard time describing, google for pictures. It’s like combination of a fabric shade, a roman shade, and a mini-blind. While they are child safe, no cords, they are expensive enough that we will wait to install when the kids are less destructive. We have had both the HD and the blinds dups. The HDs look much better, but the blinds version was also nice enough.
What now? says
Ladies – my 3 1/2 year old’s imaginary friend is an adult bearded man. Should I be worried? We don’t have any family or friends that we leave her alone with regularly and her daycare teachers are all female so I think this person really is imaginary. BUT it’s a bit uncomfortable to hear her talk about going over to an adult male friend’s house for play dates etc.
AwayEmily says
My imaginary friend at that age was an old bearded sea captain named “Pono,” so I think you’re fine.
ElisaR says
this made me lol
GCA says
I feel like this ought to be the plot for a whimsical Hayao Miyazaki movie :)
Emily S. says
My 4.5 year old’s imaginary friend is a skeleton named Bob. My sister’s at 3.5 was a man named Bob that she met on the Monorail. I think AwayEmily’s takes the cake!
This is a small sample size, but it seems like girls having male imaginary friends is common and probably nothing to be worried about. You could try digging into this friend’s backstory to see why she came up with him, if knowing the details would reassure you.
AwayEmily says
“A skeleton named Bob.” I LOVE IT.
Anonymous says
It’s an imaginary friend. In her imagination.
So Anon says
I had a litany of imaginary friends around that age, the most beloved of which was “Hello Burt.” (Sesame Street) Only thing was that I had trouble pronouncing the “t” at that age and pronounced as a “p”, so I told everyone that my friend was “Hello Burp.” Still haven’t lived that one down. My son’s imaginary friends at that age were two monkeys: Garfplum and Fan. Fan was always getting into trouble and was the cause of much mischief in the house. Garfplum was the good guy who would tell my son that he should go get mommy.
GCA says
My son had (has? we haven’t heard about him in a while) an imaginary dog named Parcher. Bonus, Parcher is a rainbow dog. When my mom heard this she reminded me about *my* imaginary dog, named Bernam. Tiny toddler has no imaginary friends yet but a bevy of lovies, all of which she has to take to bed: a bunny (Bana!), a duck (Nat – in my head this is short for Anatidae) and my travel neck pillow (THIS! THIS!).
OP – I would probably not worry a ton about the imaginary friend unless there are any behavioral red flags, just ask her for more details.
OP says
Thanks all. This is reassuring. Though when we ask for more details it doesn’t always sound great — they sleep in the same bed, she’s going to have his baby etc. I do think this is all just playing at being a grown up, but it’s disquieting to hear.
CHL says
Sounds like she has an imaginary husband! Does he do laundry? Pull his weight on emotional labor?
Anonymous says
My brother’s was a dog
Clementine says
When I was about this age, I was at home with my mom who listened to public radio. One host was named Lenny Lopate which was very fun to say (apparently). I used to tell my dad all about what Lenny Lopate and I did all day while he was at work… to the point where he was very confused as to why his small daughter was spending so much time with a man he had never met.
Anonymous says
He’s still on the air!
Em says
My 4-year-old saw a picture of Pennywise (the evil clown from It) someplace and thinks Pennywise is “hilarious” and now talks about him ALL. THE. TIME. My husband took him sledding on the hill behind our house and he told us that Pennywise lives in the sewer that comes out of the hill. For the avoidance of doubt, we have never let our 4-year-old watch the movie It. Kids are weird.
Anonymous says
My 4 year old has a whole imaginary life in an apartment downtown with his two imaginary spouses. He talks about it as if it’s real and I’m sure teachers are confused. I think you’re fine!!
Jessamyn says
A friend’s husband is watching my daughter (and his kids) while friend and I go to book club tonight. I was going to bring over a tray of mini-cupcakes for the kids to have for dessert, but should I bring anything else as a thank-you specifically for the dad?
Anonymous says
No
anon says
Beer?
mascot says
Cupcakes are fine. If you cast this in your mind as an evening playdate, instead of babysitting, does that change your view?
Jessamyn says
Good question — the kids are a bit young for drop-off playdates (3-5), so typically at a play date I would be present and responsible for my own kid the whole time. But I hear what you’re saying. :)
anon says
Slightly related – When did you start having drop off playdates? Kid is 5 and we have been invited to drop off playdates a couple of times. In each case, we knew the family from school, chatted in hallways, but had never been to each others’ homes. I admitted that we had not done a drop off before and asked if I could join. Is that weird?
Anonymous says
I mean it’s not that weird, but it’s time. Drop him off! At that age I let kids play in the house without my constant presence and I don’t always want to then just sit with someone the whole time.
Anonymous says
I don’t think it’s weird. My 5-year-old is nervous about being dropped off in a new place, so I just stay. But his brother was totally cool with it at the same age. I would take your cue from your kid.
Anonymous says
We started at 3 with one or two families we know well. Our kid is a high strung handful so honestly it hasn’t been a super regular thing- but I swear I was dropped off on play dates at 2 as a kid and I know by the time I was 4 and my sibling was 1 we were doing drop off play dates with both of us! I think it just depends how close you are with the family.
Anonymous says
3-4 in our house. In all cases, it was when my kids were potty trained (enough) and in the 3s program at preschool. my oldest is a fall b’day was 4 like a month after the 3s class started. We have neighbors down the road that had a kid in her class, so we’d switch off who picked the kids up and took them home for a playdate every few weeks or so. Then we did group playdates– all 5 girls in the preschool class would go to one house for a playdate. Parents staying was optional, usually one parent stayed. We rotated houses and it wasn’t the same parent that stayed–just someone with not too much else to do that could be another adult for company :)
My kindergartener has some friends whose parents still want to come along on playdates. I don’t care in that I want them to be comfortable, but I gotta tell you, when my Kindergartener has a friend over, I’m folding laundry, painting, etc. keeping an eye on them while they play. I’m not hands-on-entertaining. So if Mom wants to stick around, it means that I have to sit around and socialize. That’s a different kind of playdate and so for those parents, I tend to suggest “why don’t we all meet up at [place] so the kids can play?”
DLC says
What about a promise to do the same thing for him (and his wife) at some point? We have good friends and we’ve swapped babysitting like this since our kids were 3/4. Sometimes the family doing the dropping off will provide pizza. I find it really helpful to have a friend or two whim we can swap sitting with- we also will help each other out on snow days and school holidays. But approaching it like a swap and not a huge one time favor helps pave the way for this.
Anon says
Has anyone used the Slumberpod or similar products? We have a 2 year old who will not sleep at all if there is any light, and she’s also had a lot of problems sleeping if we’re in the room even if the room is pitch black (it’s “Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!” while waving at us on repeat for hours). Normally we stick her in the bathroom when we travel and don’t have a suite, but we’re going on a trip soon where we didn’t have any say in the accommodations (long story) and the bathroom will not fit a PNP.
Anonymous says
We have and like the Slumberpod. It’s a little awkward to set up (the poles are long) but takes up barely more room than the PNP, the monitor fits in the window pocket, and the white noise machine goes under the edge. Happy to answer any particular questions you have and sorry to not say more–I experience it as a product that does exactly what it’s supposed to do with minimum hassle, so not much to say beyond that.
Strategy mom says
I’ve heard it’s great!!
anone says
any tips on getting kid to eat any amount of spicy food? My 2.5 year old is a great eater and i have to modify dishes I make and put aside some for her without any spice. I’m talking heat spice NOT flavor spice like cumin etc. She’s good with that.
I’m indian and my mom says they would just dilute it and I ate it and slowly increased my tolerance, but not sure where to start at this age. Any helpful anecdotes would be helpful. I know it’s not super necessary in our culture, but a lot of cultures around the world have their children eating far spicier stuff that I’m making and I’m torn as to where to start!
TIA
GCA says
I love spicy food, and it was a regular fixture in my family growing up. My grandmother used to set aside a portion of the dish without chilli/ with less spice for the kids, or dilute it with broth/ gravy, and we slowly increased our tolerance. I don’t think the heat was at full strength until I was 8 or 9. It seems fairly kid-dependent, and I don’t think there’s any need to rush it, but you can always just expose kid to gradually higher levels of heat once they accept a certain level of spiciness. Keep a security glass of milk close at hand.
Anonymous says
My husband is Indian and only tones things down a little bit for our 18 month old. If she spits it out after taking a bite, we mix with raita or encourage her to drink milk.
Agree with the above poster about slowly increasing tolerance (which I did as an adult after meeting my husband)
Anon says
Coming from a family full of GI issues, I personally would want to wait until your child could express if the food was hurting her. Is it causing heartburn? Painful number 2s? I don’t know how old they need to be to understand the link between the two.
Anonymous says
We’ve always given our daughter the same level of spiciness as us since she started eating solids unless it’s like a vindaloo. Zero issues she eats it all. Her cousin is 1/2 Sri Lankan and does the same. But if she’s not used to it then yeh gradually introduce it.
Em says
+1 my son is 4 and this is what we always do. Neither my husband nor I like insanely spicy things, and my husband’s tolerance is lower than mine, so anything we make probably doesn’t exceed a 5 in spiciness level, but we just serve it to my son. If he doesn’t want to eat it, he doesn’t have to, but we don’t make him anything special or modify the food for him.
ALC says
Y’all, I am not feeling social at all these days. I have a 6-month old and work 50 hour weeks,and I just want to relax with husband and baby on weekends. I am in a choir that has weekly practices, and I usually have a work event in the evening 2-3 times a month, but other than that I really don’t feel like making plans with friends… is this bad?
Anon says
Sounds normal to me (in fact was me for pretty much the first year of my kiddo’s life), but I’m an introvert and, like you, typically work 50-70 hour weeks. Even now (with a preschooler) I see friends maybe 1-3x a month. I have a fair number of “work friends” so I do get some of that social interaction during the workday. If it’s not normal *for you* and there are other symptoms, might be worth a discussion with your doctor about PPD.
IHeartBacon says
100% normal. It took me over a year to start to feel like myself again and to want to rebuild my social calendar
lsw says
To the poster yesterday about belly-sleeper – have you tried putting the diaper on backwards? And the other tips worked for us too (always making sure his p was pointed down; sizing up in overnights.)
anon says
What are you doing with your kids this weekend? The weather this week has been miserable and there has been a lot of indoor recess at daycare/school. I’m hoping the kids can get outside and play in the snow for a few hours, because we all have a serious case of cabin fever. (Can I say it? We’re all pretty bored with the monotony of winter.)
Anononon says
I know this is a deeply personal decision but for those of you in HCOL areas with homes over $1mm, what percentage did you put down and what % of your after tax is your mortgage payment? We have the 20% down-payment but it’s making me weary to commit to a big monthly payment if it would be 40% of our take home (after maxing both of our 401ks)
ElisaR says
we did 20% down and our take home % is hard to calculate due to a commission based compensation set up. But 40% can work. Really basic so I apologize if I’m over simplifying but I think the question is: have you put down on paper your spending? can you cover it?
Anon says
We chose a house further out at $800K, rather than closer in at $1.1M. I don’t know the after-tax calculation, but we put 20% down and when we bought it the mortgage was approximately 20% of our gross income, without accounting for taxes and insurance, which we just pay out of pocket when due, rather than with our mortgage payment – probably 25% if you escrowed those. In the 5ish years since, it’s now approximately 13% of pre-tax because my salary has increased significantly.
Boston Legal Eagle says
We put 20% in a HCOL area – not $1 million but there are suburbs around here where “normal” houses go for that much. Housing expenses are 20-30% percent of our take-home, depending on if you count property taxes and insurance or not. Childcare right now is another 30%, so just make sure you’ll have enough to cover all of your expenses with the new mortgage. I think a lot of people slow down on 401K contributions (just enough to get the match) during the season with $$$ childcare payments.
Anon 4 this says
We recently bought a home in a VHCOL for $1.75 million. We put down 10% initially, sold our old home and put the proceeds of the sale towards the principal about 2 months later. After that our “down payment” was about 30%. Our current monthly payment is just under 20% of our after tax income, but our incomes are higher now than we expect them to be in 5 years or so. So we are trying to save money now to pay down more principal so that when our incomes decrease we can stay around 20-30% of our after tax income (probably more like 30%).
anon says
Similarly, we bought a $1M home with 10% down, and then put the proceeds from a home sale into the new mortgage about a month later. We then recast our mortgage to drop our monthly payment. Now, 4 years later with appreciation we’re at about 60% equity. We could refinance to take money out, but we like having a very small required monthly payment in case one of us loses our job or decides to downsize their career.
anon says
Our house in a VHCOL area was 1.4M. We put 20% down and our monthly payment is about 30% of our take home pay. We also own a second property that is rented out, but at some point down the line, we may sell it and put that money toward paying off principal on our main house.
Anon says
Our house isn’t over $1M, but I think our HHI is lower than most here. We put 20% down and our payments are about 40% of our take-home pay, after maxing 401ks. We are ok with that, because we can still afford our other expenses even if we do have to save for larger purchases.
In your case, I would track your spending over a few months. Write down what your take-home pay is, subtract daycare, estimated utilities, car payments, and any other fixed expenses. Then subtract your discretionary spending, like groceries, any extra classes for the kids, clothing, toys, etc. Does that leave enough for your projected mortgage payment? If not, can you see cuts that you are comfortable making to get there? Are you ok with those cuts over the long term? Is your incomes likely to go up?
AnonLondon says
Presume you’ve already factored this in, but is the 40% just the mortgage payment or mortgage plus escrowed taxes/insurance? Because the former would make me a lot more nervous than the latter in the US (especially if you’re somewhere that property taxes go up every year).
OP says
Thank you! Mortgage + Insurance + Taxes. 40% also after we’ve put $40k in 401k, $20k each. Everyone’s input is so helpful
Anonymous says
Hmm, so we are not exactly what you asked about- we bought a house for $700k with 20% down, but then we put on a $350k addition, about $150k of that was financed and the rest was cash.
So, all told, we have spent $1.05M on our house, $340k of which was cash. I don’t know exactly what our mortgage payment is because we have 2 mortgages, one with taxes and insurance and the other is just a mortgage. It’s in the neighborhood of $5k/month, and includes $500 extra toward principal on the higher interest loan (but again, that number includes insurance and taxes).
our HHI was $450k when we bought the house, $300k when we decided to fund the addition, and in the 6 years we’ve lived here has fluctuated $300-400k. I work part time/freelance so my income has been anywhere from $60k to $150k. DH has been fairly flat at $250k.
Anonymous says
I posted but it’s stuck in mod. When we bought a house, we wanted to make sure we could afford the mortgage payment (inc. taxes and ins) on one salary if need be. That meant we could pull back on funding 401ks/savings/etc, but we wanted to be able to make it work in a situation of job loss. so we did exactly that and – hey what do you know?, not even 4 months later I lost my job. I had a lot of emotions about that but not one of those emotions was “how can we afford the house?!” because I knew that even if it meant scaling back on our savings, we could make the mortgage payment every month.
FWIW, I got a new job, we saved up a bunch of money, and put on a big addition.
Anon says
Same – when we bought our house, DH was self-employed with a lot of fluctuation so we did it based on one income (mine), and sure enough now, 5 years later, he shut down his business and stays home with the kids, and I’m glad we did not have to move for that to be comfortable!
Anon says
I would love to do that but in areas where a house costs $1M+, that’s just not a realistic option for most people. I’m not willing to have a 90 min+ commute each way to work just so that we can afford to buy a house that we can pay for on one of our income.
XStitcher says
I know it is late in the day, but I needed to vent…Daycare just called to notify us one of the children was diagnosed with whooping cough. Now, I’m on my way to the pediatrician’s office. My one year old has had problems with febrile seizures and ear infections. Surgery is scheduled in a few weeks for tubes, and I’m enraged that this may derail that even if she isn’t sick.
ElisaR says
Whooping cough?? Oh man. We haven’t had that one yet in our 3 yr daycare adventure. i’m sorry that’s so frustrating. Scheduling small children’s surgeries is so so ridiculously difficult. I hope this doesn’t screw it up!
khamm says
And I would be all over “how did this happen?” Was the child who got Whooping Cough (pertussis) age-appropriately vaccinated? The pertussis vaccine is a long series so an age-appropriately vaccinated infant may not have full immunity, but if the daycare was slack in reviewing records and excluding children who were late or accepted a “philosophical exemption” (if your state still allows those), I’d be all up in arms.
Pogo says
Same. I lost my job about 3 months after we bought our house, though with severance I didn’t have any loss of income. I was still very glad we bought something that allowed me to have some freedom in finding my next gig and not feel that pressure to take the first thing that came along so we could pay the mortgage. We can carry it on one income, not super easily, but we could (DH and I are pretty close in income). We max out all tax incentive savings for retirement and I think our mortgage + tax + insurance is around 30% of our take home, maybe less by now. HCOL but we bought further out to avoid the $800K-1.5M range. Of course houses on our street sell for $800K now bc this market is bananas and inventory is low.
Pogo says
ugh was supposed to be in reply to the anon at 3:27