Other mothers, is there a point where the daycare crud sort of calms down to an occasional evil, instead of constant tide of snot and coughing?

Emmett was sick once a week for the first three months he was in his first daycare. It sucked. In his second daycare there was about a two month transition period until he got used to the new germpool.

They get sick a lot that first year or so. On the plus side, he hardly ever gets sick now. But it was a real grind that first year.

You did get the bit where she said "math idiot," right?

Yeah.

Maybe if I explained in English:

what percentage 61.61 is of 205.37

61.61 is a fraction of 205.37. Percent means that it should be expressed as a fraction of 100. We'll let x stand for this unknown percent. These two fractions should be the same.

Of course, there's no getting 'round that algebra is now required.

I divide the little number by the big number and slide the decimal point over two.

But you don't always know that you should do that. i.e. it might be a case where the % is greater than 100.

eta: for some hypothetical precentage problem.

That's what I did, but I was attacked by sudden doubt.

you don't always know that you should do that. i.e. it might be a case where the % is greater than 100.

Well, that can be a different question, can't it?

Basically, for avoiding math terms, if you need to know what percent A is of B, divide A by B and bump the dot.

Okay, I just figure that 61 twice is about 122 - add another 61 and you're so close to 200 that it's probably about 30%.

I just remember the trick where "61.61 is a portion of 205.37, the same way that ?? percent is a portion of 100." YOu draw that as the aforementioned equation:

61.61/205.37 = ??/100

And then you do the criss-cross trick! top-left and bottom-right go together, and bottom-left and top-right go together (this is much easier to draw than to describe) so you end up with this:

61.61 * 100 = 6161 = 205.37 * ??

And then you divide both sides by 205.37.

6161/205.37 = (205.37/205.37) *??

Since anything divided by itself is 1, you end up with:

6161/205.37 = ??

And then you just type it into a calculator and find out it is actually 29.9995%! Which rounds up to 30 in a way that only makes really nitpicky people cry.

I have to sit down and draw out each step of this process sometimes. (Not all the time.) I am also the sort who, when converting feet to inches, sometimes have to do the little hand-gesture, "larger-to-smaller, multiply. Smaller-to-larger, divide." It's like the Watusi, except you can do it sitting down.

Can you tell it's almost tax time?

The cool thing about expressing such problems as a pair of fractions is that it works for all sorts of % problems.

Say you have 18 toasters. That's 57% of the number of toasters that you need. How many toasters do you need?

57% means 57/100. You have 18 out of a total of some unknown number. So,

57/100 = 18/x

The cool thing about expressing such problems as a pair of fractions is that it works for all sorts of % problems.

I'm not denying that formulae are more flexible, etc.

I love the math.

However, not everyone does--so if someone uses the term "math idiot" I'm gonna provide a method to solve that problem.

Question about teapots. The assumption in design is that you serve the whole pot at once, right? Otherwise the second pouring is too strong and old. What if you're one person that wants two (consecutive) cups of the same brew?