Preparation for Parenthood
===========================

Preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books
and decorating the nursery.  Here are 12 simple tests for
expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real-
life experience of being a mother or father.

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, take out 10% of the beans.  

Men: to prepare for paternity, go to the local drug store, tip
the contents of your wallet on 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 paper.  Read it for the last time.

2.  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 the
answers.

3.  To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living
room from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. carrying a wet bag weighing
approximately 8-12 lbs.  At 10 p.m. 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, till 1 a.m.  Put the
alarm on for 3 a.m.  As you can't get back to sleep get up at 2
a.m. and make a drink.  Go to bed at 2:45 a.m.  Get up again at
3 a.m. when the alarm goes off.  Sing songs in the dark until
4 a.m.  Put the alarm on for 5 a.m.  Get up.  Make breakfast. 
Keep this up for 5 years.  Look cheerful. 

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 pot 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 cracker.  Last, take a milk container, a ping pong
ball, and an empty packet of Coco Pops 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 Taurus.  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 quarter. 
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 end, 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 into 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 Weetabix and attempt to spoon it into the
swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.  Continue until
half the Weetabix is 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 Postman Pat,
Fireman Sam and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  When you find
yourself singing "Postman Pat" at work, you finally qualify as a
parent.