As They Grow Up

Well, I had a talk with Monkey. One of 'the' talks. Yes we talked about walking to school on his own. We've talked every once and a while all year about him walking on his own. He likes our walks, and that was part of his hesitance, but we still walk the dog together.

Thursday morning it happened! I hugged him, wished him a good day and off he went. No call from school, so I figured he got there. I've walked him almost every day all school year and it's a straight line, so not yard. I had full confidence in him.

No more bubble wrapped kid. Not that he was at too much of a risk. I let my kids make mistakes and have both space AND independence. ;)

While this is our 3rd child, and I have gotten the necessities off kijiji, I have held off on some purchases knowing people like to give too. I am a registry person (only just stopped registering the kids for Christmas because it wasn't worth it!), so Glider has registries at Cheeky Monkey in London (my favourite baby boutique and for London friends):
View My Registry
And at Babies'R'Us (Toys'R'Us)
Babies'R'Us Registry #60517182

You may have noticed that my annual X-Mas letter is getting later and later. This year I set out to have it emailed by March break. Therefore, I have 2 days to write and edit. It will be out shortly! Promise! :D

By Author Unknown (if you know who wrote it, PLEASE let me know, but borrowed from http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/13/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!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.