Hi Everyone,
PREPARING FOR PARENTHOOD
>
> Go down to the local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the
> counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the
> supermarket and arrange to have your wages paid directly to head
> office. Go home, pick up the paper and read it for the last time.
>
> 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 behaviour. Enjoy it - it'll be the last time in
> your life that you have all the answers.
>
> To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room
> from 5pm til 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 9-12lb.
> At about 10pm put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to
> sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the
> bag, until 1am. Put the alarm on for 3am. As you can't get back to
> sleep, get up at 2am. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put the
> alarm on for 5am. Get up, make breakfast. Keep this up for five
> years. Look cheerful.
>
> Can you stand the mess that children make? To find out, first smear
> Marmite onto the sofa and jam on the curtains. Hide a fishfinger
> behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers
> in the flower beds, then rub them on the walls. Cover the stains
> with crayons. How does it look?
>
> Dressing small children is not as easy as it looks. Buy an octopus
> and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus in the string bag so that
> none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
> Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint,
> turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet roll tube. Using only Copydex
> and a piece of foil, make a Christmas cracker. Last take a milk container,
> a ping-pong ball and an empty packet of Cocopops and make a replica of
> the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations, you've just qualified for the Play
> Group Committee.
>
> Forget the BMW Z3 and buy a Mondeo. Don't think that you can leave
> it on the drive spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like
> that. Buy a choc-ice, put it in the glove compartment and leave it
> there. Get a 20p piece and stick it in the CD player. Take a
> family-sized packet of chocolate biscuits and mash them down the
> back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There
> perfect!
>
> Get ready to go out. Wait outside the loo for half an hour. Go out
> of the front door, come in again, go out, come back in, go out. Walk
> down the path, walk back up it, walk down it again. Walk very slowly
> down the road for five minutes. Stop to inspect every cigarette end,
> piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the
> way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you have had about as much as
> you can take until the neighbours come out and stare at you. Give up
> and go back into the house. Do it all again later. You are now just
> about ready to take a small child for a walk.
>
> Always repeat everything you say five times.
>
> Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you
> 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 weeks groceries without letting the goats out of your sight.
> Pay for everything that the goats eat or destroy. Until you can
> easily accomplish this, do not consider having children.
>
> 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 soggy Weetabix and
> attempt to spoon it into the swinging melon by pretending to be an
> aeroplane. Balance a spoon and a cup on top of the melon and every
> time either one falls off you must stop spooning in the Weetabix and
> try and balance them on top again within 5 seconds. Continue until
> half the Weetabix has gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure
> a lot of it falls onto the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12
> month old baby.
>
> Learn the names of every character from the Teletubbies, Postman Pat
> and the Tweenies. When you find yourself singing 'The Wheels on the
> Bus' at work, you finally qualify as a parent.
Claire x
PREPARING FOR PARENTHOOD
>
> Go down to the local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the
> counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the
> supermarket and arrange to have your wages paid directly to head
> office. Go home, pick up the paper and read it for the last time.
>
> 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 behaviour. Enjoy it - it'll be the last time in
> your life that you have all the answers.
>
> To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room
> from 5pm til 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 9-12lb.
> At about 10pm put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to
> sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the
> bag, until 1am. Put the alarm on for 3am. As you can't get back to
> sleep, get up at 2am. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put the
> alarm on for 5am. Get up, make breakfast. Keep this up for five
> years. Look cheerful.
>
> Can you stand the mess that children make? To find out, first smear
> Marmite onto the sofa and jam on the curtains. Hide a fishfinger
> behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers
> in the flower beds, then rub them on the walls. Cover the stains
> with crayons. How does it look?
>
> Dressing small children is not as easy as it looks. Buy an octopus
> and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus in the string bag so that
> none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
> Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint,
> turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet roll tube. Using only Copydex
> and a piece of foil, make a Christmas cracker. Last take a milk container,
> a ping-pong ball and an empty packet of Cocopops and make a replica of
> the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations, you've just qualified for the Play
> Group Committee.
>
> Forget the BMW Z3 and buy a Mondeo. Don't think that you can leave
> it on the drive spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like
> that. Buy a choc-ice, put it in the glove compartment and leave it
> there. Get a 20p piece and stick it in the CD player. Take a
> family-sized packet of chocolate biscuits and mash them down the
> back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There
> perfect!
>
> Get ready to go out. Wait outside the loo for half an hour. Go out
> of the front door, come in again, go out, come back in, go out. Walk
> down the path, walk back up it, walk down it again. Walk very slowly
> down the road for five minutes. Stop to inspect every cigarette end,
> piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the
> way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you have had about as much as
> you can take until the neighbours come out and stare at you. Give up
> and go back into the house. Do it all again later. You are now just
> about ready to take a small child for a walk.
>
> Always repeat everything you say five times.
>
> Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you
> 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 weeks groceries without letting the goats out of your sight.
> Pay for everything that the goats eat or destroy. Until you can
> easily accomplish this, do not consider having children.
>
> 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 soggy Weetabix and
> attempt to spoon it into the swinging melon by pretending to be an
> aeroplane. Balance a spoon and a cup on top of the melon and every
> time either one falls off you must stop spooning in the Weetabix and
> try and balance them on top again within 5 seconds. Continue until
> half the Weetabix has gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure
> a lot of it falls onto the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12
> month old baby.
>
> Learn the names of every character from the Teletubbies, Postman Pat
> and the Tweenies. When you find yourself singing 'The Wheels on the
> Bus' at work, you finally qualify as a parent.
Claire x
