Friday Fragments: Crying it Out

Friday Fragments are bits and pieces of your week that are usually brief; too short for a stand-alone post, but too good to discard. Collect humorous observations, "Heard" items, and other small gems and put them together in a Friday Fragments post.

Friday Fragments are the brainchild of Mrs.4444 and you can find more at Half Past Kissin' Time.

You guys, I have not been a good Friday Fragmenter. I have posted the last couple of weeks, but not found the time to visit the other participants. This week, I will try my best to visit each and every one over the weekend!

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My mom shared this one Facebook, a friend of hers got it from a chain letter she received in email. I liked it, so here it is.

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year.

(Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

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Does anyone else find this Luvs commercial creepy, gross and strange?

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We started cry it out with Danny this week. The first night, he cried for 40 minutes, the last 15 intermittent. He only woke up 3 times that night and needed comfort, and fell back to sleep within 5 minutes each time. The second night, he only cried 25 minutes, the last 10 intermittent. The second and third nights, he slept from 9 until 8 the next morning without needing us.

I don't like doing it, really. But it works. It worked for Sam, and frankly I have not had a good night's sleep in over 9 months. I need him out of my bed. While I was reading a little on the internet (some people think it's great, some hate it... OF COURSE), I found this post by Jon Armstrong at his blog blurbomat. It made me feel better, and I think it's well written. I did feel a moment of... something or other when I was at a gathering talking about using cry it out, and someone said it doesn't work. It wasn't a whole conversation, but just that comment made me doubt myself for a second.

Either way, I'm not really interested in debating whether it's the "right thing to do" or not. We're trying it. Hopefully it works out. If not, we'll try something else. The bottom line is that right now, Danny's sleeping better in his own bed than he did when he was with us, and so am I. I am looking forward to NOT having bags under my eyes one of these days.

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Now for something serious. March 2 was a national day for awareness in ending the use of the r-word. If you don't know what it is, it's "retard".

As a 30 year old woman, I can tell you that learning not to use that word was a change for me. I think that for my generation, in middle/high school we used that word a lot to talk about things that were dumb, stupid, or silly.

Then I grew up. I became a mother, and I read stories from other mothers like Tanis about how hurtful it is to them when people casually throw around the r-word in conversation. I don't like it when people use the word 'bitch'. I don't know why I'm extra touchy about it, but I am, and it's one word that my husband knows that he shouldn't call me even when we're joking around. I imagine the way I feel when I hear it, and then I try to multiply that by about a million to try and imagine how mothers of disabled kids feel when they hear the word spoken without thought.

I had to make a conscious change to take the r-word out of my vocabulary. I have worked to make sure that it's not introduced into my 5 year old son's vocabulary either. I know I'm a few days late, but take a couple of minutes to read these wonderful posts from mothers, and then maybe visit R Word: Spread the Word to End the Word or The Social Challenge, who are working to combat the r-word on Twitter.

"Why You Shouldn't Use the R-Word" by Tanis @ Redneck Mommy
"Hear My Battle Cry" by Tanis @ Redneck Mommy
"The Retard in the Next Booth" by Eli's Dad @ JC West
"If you ask people not to use the word 'retard'" by Ellen @ Love That Max
"A Word I Hate" by Laura @ Adventures in Juggling
"Jennifer Aniston, the r-word, and the aftermath" by Jean @ The Washington Times

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And now for my weekly ramblings about Top Chef. First off, how did I not catch that Antonia is a single mom? I guess I've been under a rock. She called her daughter at the beginning of the show which is code for either she's going to win or she's going home. I loved when she said 'Is Padma going to walk in here?' and then... she totally did. It was funny.

The quickfire was interesting because they never got told exactly how much time they had, which is unusual. I've never seen them do that before. I love that Richard has had MRE bags with him all season just in case. I guess they came in handy. Mike made a soup that he said he wouldn't even serve to his cat, which was kind of funny. I was sure Antonia or Richard would win. To me, Antonia's looked the most tasty, although I'm not sure about the hot dog flavor infused into it from the hot dog machine. I was surprised Carla won with her weird orange salad. It did not look tasty, but I guess looks can be deceiving, right?

I really liked the elimination challenge. I think it was very cool to give the chance to let people see how amazing they are as chefs by cooking food without so many gimmicks, and based on themselves and their heritage. Although maybe this would be a challenge better for earlier in the season considering how WELL they all cooked, and the final outcome.

I loved that Richard found stuff about chemistry and meat markets in his packet. And then Mike and Antonia figure out they're distant relatives. So funny. It makes me wonder how many people I know/have met that I am actually related to somewhere, you know?

I felt SO BAD for Richard when they said 'pack your knives and go... to the Bahamas!" He looked like he had a heart attack. I guess I should have seen it coming when one of the moms asked "have you ever had a final five." This is where I start thinking maybe this wasn't the best challenge to do at the end. If there had been some kind of gimmick, maybe someone would have cooked less well. I don't know. I get that ALL their food was good, but it's kind of pointless to just keep everyone when the whole point of the show is elimination and getting down to one chef.

I am excited about next week - going head to head with the chefs who won their season? Crazy!

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I went to McDonalds today to get Sam some chicken nuggets, and I ordered a cup of water. I always specify because I don't want the bottle, I just want free water. The guy taking the order asked me to repeat myself, and then said 'oh okay. I thought you asked for a cumquat! I was like, we don't have those. This is McDonalds.' It was really funny.

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It is Friday night at 9:00 and both of my kids are asleep in their bedrooms. WOOT! I'm off to visit some Friday Framgents!