Family Friday: Toddler Tutu Dress
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Now that it’s August, I’m starting to feel some back-to-school vibes. This tutu dress from Old Navy would have been on the top of my daughter’s shopping list when she was a toddler.
This dress features a stretchy wrap front, long sleeves, and a fluffy tulle skirt. It’s perfect for the first day of school or even a special party. It comes in four colors (“blush hue,” “creme de la creme,” “have a heart,” and heather gray). While the cream one is looking for a marker stain or spaghetti sauce stain, the red one will work well into the fall and (is it too early?) the holidays.
Old Navy’s Fit & Flare Wrap-Front Tutu Dress is on sale for $12.99.
Sales of note for 4/24/25
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – 7,710 new markdowns for women!
- Ann Taylor – Friends of Ann Event: 30% off your entire purchase, including 100s of new arrivals
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 25% off
- Eloquii – Spring Clearance: Up to 75% off + extra 50-60% off sale
- J.Crew – Mid-Season Sale: Up to 60% off sale styles + up to 50% off summer-ready styles
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 50% off clearance + extra 15% off $100 + extra 20% off $125
- M.M.LaFleur – 3 pieces for $198. Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Friends & Family Event: 30% off entire purchase, includes markdowns
Does anyone have a foldable wagon they really like? The scenario I need this for is ‘I am going to the farmers market and have 3 small children’ or alternately ‘wow I seem to have a lot of things to drag down to the (lake) beach and now this small child is tired walking back and hanging off me begging to be carried’.
School starts in a few weeks and I am dreading it. My kiddo with ADHD has had a great summer. The school year is almost sure to bring on the drama and phone calls and I am exhausted just thinking about it. We are not new to this, and yet after all these years, it doesn’t feel like there’s a good solution. Therapy is minimally helpful. There are no private schools that are any better suited to his needs than the affluent public school he attends. His academic needs (2e) are met, but everything else is SUCH a struggle. Summer has been a good break from the grind but he’s already anxious about going back and so am I. I am not an educator and I need to work but I see why people say forget it and homeschool these kids. (I would be so terrible at being a homeschool mom so please don’t suggest that I do that.)
For the commenter from this morning on the previous post about MIL over-gifting and being upset about how you “use” the gifts. It wouldn’t let me post a response to your comment:
I have SO many thoughts about this. We have a similar dynamic with my MIL, down to my husband generally being more tolerant of having stuff than I am. We observed her give tons of gifts to our nieces before our daughter was born and vowed we didn’t want that to happen for a few reasons (consumerism, not wanting to overwhelm our kid, not wanting cr@p to take over our home). She also gave things that were meant for older kids, so my BIL had to store them (like a potty when their oldest was only six months old and a huge dollhouse with tiny parts). I see a lot of people in these situations who just say you should be thankful for whatever you get, and that it’s rude to tell people what you want to be gifted, but I suspect these people mostly haven’t dealt with a grandma who comes over with a giant toy or baby gear item (or literally TWENTY TWO baby outfits, omg) every time she comes over. If it’s close family and it’s ongoing, then you have to deal with it somehow, and just keeping everything to protect her feelings at all costs isn’t the way. And really you can be genuinely thankful for the thought behind the gift without keeping it!
The big picture thing to remember is that she’s very likely doing this out of love for her grandchild, even if her expression of it is really frustrating. My MIL worries out loud about whether our kid really likes her when she cries or has normal baby reactions. Being sensitive to that is so important. I think there’s insecurity about her role since she feels like my mom has more access to our kid than she does (which isn’t true, but I think this dynamic is common in many families). Validating that our daughter feels a bond with her and commenting on how much our kid loves going on walks in the park with grandma and other activities has helped somewhat.
My MIL also grew up in another country with very little, so I know to her it’s an absolute miracle that she can go to TJ Maxx or Target and select a fun toy for $10 before she comes over. Even for a Boomer that grew up in security in the US, the plethora of cheap toys has exploded over the last 20-30 years, and I think our culture has decided that the answer to every insecurity or wish to “help” or be there for someone is to Buy Them More Stuff. It’s an uphill battle that we can’t completely win. And for all of your efforts, your MIL might still continue to give gifts like this and you really can’t control it, so there’s a certain amount of just letting it go that has to happen (but that doesn’t mean you have to keep it in your house).
While I want her to show her love for our kid, I feel just as strongly that’s it’s important to do what is best for our kid and our family. From the reading I’ve done, overwhelming kids with toys leads to less meaningful play and sets up the expectation that every time grandma comes over, she’s coming with a new toy (which has the opposite of her intended effect of bonding with kiddo). I got husband on board by framing it from an anti-consumerist perspective and really wanting our kid to engage in play with fewer, more open-ended toys. We’re generally the semi-crunchy weirdos in the family, so most seem to get it.
We set a few parameters around what we don’t want (plastic, items with batteries) and shared with our families what we DO want, which is just as important (books and secondhand items). BUT! This isn’t a mandate, and you can’t control people. When we do get the items we don’t want, we thank her. If it’s especially crazy (huge, developmentally inappropriate, and/or expensive), my husband lets her know that it doesn’t work for us because of our parameters that she has already been told multiple times. We’re both pretty blunt people, so I don’t spend time worrying about how she feels about it (because she already knew our feelings about that type of item). If she doesn’t want to take it back, we just go ahead and donate it. If she asks about it later, we’re truthful that it didn’t work for us. For smaller things, we tend to just say thank you and pass it on. While donation centers are overwhelmed with stuff, I figure a brand new item in the box is probably a welcome donation. If you’ve already let her know that you generally don’t want a certain type of item and she still goes ahead and purchases it, her feelings about that are HER responsibility. If she asks for something back and you don’t have it any more, that’s not your problem. You have to kind of get used to a bit of discomfort around that, but that’s how it goes.
We just received an email from our head of school at our private preschool through grade 5 about the Head of School’s maternity leave plan. She is planning on taking 8-10 weeks and it’s sounds like working during much of that time. Obviously i don’t know her family’s financial situation and whether she can afford to take more time that I’m assuming would be unpaid, but this sounds ridiculous to me. I it’s not really my problem but i feel like she is setting herself up for failure and it just makes me sad
I’m a first time mom to a 2 month old and I’m miserable. I have the in laws helping me at the moment (and I know I’m lucky to have the extra help) but I am terrified and anxious for when they leave because I dread being alone with the baby while husband is at work. She is an awful sleeper and I can never “sleep when the baby sleeps” because I’m anxious – about everything. I’ve scored high on the maternal depression screening and have an appointment lined up with my PCP to discuss PPD but…
When will it get better?
A vent but then an “I am a bad@ss” comment. Kindergarten starts next Wednesday. This past Wednesday I got a “welcome back” email from private preschool (where I had planned to send my kindergartener) that casually mentioned preschool now ends at 2:30 instead of 4:30. Excuse me, what? There was absolutely no mention of this all summer while my rising kindergartener was enrolled in preschool. So I got him registered for kindergarten in less than 24 hours and one day before the public kindergarten “deadline” to be assigned a teacher. So I feel proud of myself about that. Now I’m not sure what to do about my littles who were going to attend preschool with their older brother. All the places I’ve called are booked til 2024 (lol). I have an offer to go back to work, but I can’t work 9AM-2PM, which is how long preschool would give me coverage (accounting for commute time). I could possibly get my nanny to do aftercare, but that plus preschool would be my entire salary. Sigh. I don’t know how two working parents do it.
Any tips on how to stop the bedtime bottle? Just never produce it and let the baby cry it out? Switch to water instead? Baby is about ~14 months, and the bedtime routine right now includes bath, pjs, and rocking with bottle, then put in crib when either bottle is finished or kid is asleep (more often the former than the later, these days). This is the only bottle we still do.
my 75 year old father who has diabetes contracted covid on wednesday. He has a doctor that I consider to be a wack-job. In the past this doctor advised against getting covid booster for my parents (both are 75 and both not in perfect health). Now he is advising against my father taking paxlovid. He does not give a good reason other than “it is a garbage drug”. I said “funny it was good enough for the president!” Anyway, I would be suspicious of this doctor just by reading his email newsletter but my dad also mentioned that he noticed he had One America Network in his office in the background of their visit in the past. Do we trust that he should not take paxlovid?? I asked my doctor friend and she said that it is recommended in this case but pushing back against a doctor’s recommendation feels….. wrong. I always trust them. Thoughts?
Is Hanna still the gold standard for leggings that last through multiple kids? Or should I just accept that my children will destroy all leggings regardless of their quality and go with Target ones?
My MIL will give us things for our infant daughter, and then demand them back if she doesn’t think we are using them sufficiently. How do we handle this? If we tell her we don’t want something when she gives it to us, she is very huffy. She never includes a receipt. We cannot donate items because she’s over once a week and always takes stock of what we do and don’t have out. She brings a new gift each visit so they really add up. Recent “gifts” that she’s demanded back have included a 3-foot stuffed unicorn and a vtech walker for our daughter who doesn’t yet walk. (I donated both and told her, which went over extremely poorly). We do not have storage space to pretend we will use these items later. We already don’t have a great relationship and with our daughter’s first birthday coming up in the next couple of months I’m steeling myself for a mound of unwanted gifts she’ll demand back months later. My husband has accepted that this is the way she is, but his tolerance for clutter is a lot higher than mine. She likes to buy things SHE likes without regard to the recipient so past attempts to suggest certain things we actually need have gotten mixed results.
WWYD- I was absolutely crushed by a project this week, and my mom has been watching one of my kids for the majority of the week. I would have otherwise hired a babysitter. My mom is under-employed and theoretically should have been working during the time she has been helping me out, but since she just sort of dabbles here and these with work (does some admin stuff on the side for contractors, house/baby/dogsits) it’s hard to tell if she gave up work this week- esp since she’s been with my kiddo 9/10-4ish but usually works at night anyway. Additionally, she hasn’t been Super Nanny with my kiddo. Kid has basically been hanging at grandma’s helping her sort through her basement for donations, painting the deck, weeding the yard etc with occasional breaks for the pool.
Should I get my mom some kind of gift card as a thank you? A gift? Give her some cash? If the latter, how much? What I would have otherwise paid a sitter? Money is not an issue for me and is often for her. She didn’t do this as a job, she did it to be helpful.
Thanks for your thoughts!