Preparing for parenthood

[Tigerhair]

Are you ready for parenthood?



Test 1
Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months remove 10% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for paternity, go to Boots, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2
To discover how the nights will feel . . .
1) Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4-6kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2) At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3) Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4) Set the alarm for 3am.
5) As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6) Go to bed at 2. 45am.
7) Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off
8) Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.
9) Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off
10) Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

[Shirley]

hahaha!! Love it...

But only to be kept up for 5 years??!!

[ina]

My neighbour's third child is due any day now... I really admire her courage, to try a third time. Not that the two boys aren't lovely (sometimes )!

Duncan's comment, whenever he sees me through the fence in the garden: Ina, what you doin? Now, I can cope with that once in a while, but daily? Hourly? Nightly?

I think every parent deserves a few medals.

[Stonehead]

My neighbour's third child is due any day now... I really admire her courage, to try a third time. Not that the two boys aren't lovely (sometimes )!

Duncan's comment, whenever he sees me through the fence in the garden: Ina, what you doin? Now, I can cope with that once in a while, but daily? Hourly? Nightly?

I think every parent deserves a few medals.

A few medals? How about a life?

Stonehead

[Ermintrude]

I'm too knackered to have a life!

[Ermintrude]

Oh crikey I've turned into Gerry! It was painless - and without all the traffic on London Bridge to contend with too! I can't wait to turn into Barbara - Mr Ermintrude's dreams will come true!

[Hepsibah]

That's great! I found a few more to go with it...



3. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it- it'll be the last time in your life that you will have all of the answers.
4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?
5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
6. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a can of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet tube. Using only scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas tree. Last, take a milk container, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Coco Puffs and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations, you have just qualified for a place on the playgroup committee.
7. Forget the Miata and buy a Mini Van. And don't think you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a 2p coin. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a family-size packet of chocolate cookies. Mash them down the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. -There! Perfect!
8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the toilet for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had as much as you can stand, until the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go back in the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.
10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this do not even contemplate having children.
11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Fruit Loops and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half of the Fruit Loops are gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month old baby.
12. Learn the names of every character from Barney and Friends, Sesame Street and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When you find yourself singing ``I love you, you love me'' at work, now you finally qualify as a parent.

[Ermintrude]

....also make sure to smear, yoghurt, tomato ketchup and/or chocolate just above your knees by about 11 o' clock every morning. This simulates a toddler using you as a napkin.