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 and 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 of the answers.

3. To discover how the nights feel, walk around the living room from 5 PM to 10 PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 lbs. At 10 PM 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 1 AM. Put the alarm on for 3 AM. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2 AM and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45 AM. Get up again at 3 AM when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4 AM. Put the alarm on for 5 AM. 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 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 Cocoa 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 minivan. 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 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 Froot Loops and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half of the Froot 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.

Food shortage

A world wide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was: “Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?”

The survey was a huge failure…

In Africa they didn’t know what “food” meant.

In Eastern Europe they didn’t know what “honest” meant.

In Western Europe they didn’t know what “shortage” meant.

In China they didn’t know what “opinion” meant.

In the Middle East they didn’t know what “solution” meant.

In South America they didn’t know what “please” meant.

And in the USA they didn’t know what “the rest of the world” meant.

Quickie

Q: What’s the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?

A: The taste.

Showering

How To Shower Like a Woman

Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks.

Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown.

If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

Look at your womanly physique in the mirror – make mental note to do more sit-ups/leg-lifts, etc.

Get in the shower. Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.

Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.

Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.

Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner enhanced with real passion fruit.

Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red.

Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.

Rinse conditioner off hair.

Shave armpits and legs.

Turn off shower.

Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower.

Spray mold spots with Tilex.

Get out of shower and stand on bathmat.

Dry with towel the size of a small country.
Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.

Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head.

If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

How To Shower Like a Man

Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile.

Walk naked to the bathroom.

If you see wife along the way, shake wiener at her making the "woo-woo" sound.

Look at your manly physique in the mirror.

Admire the size of your wiener and scratch your ass.

Get in the shower.

Wash your face. Wash your armpits.

Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off.

Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.

Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.

Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the soap.

Wash your hair. Make a Shampoo Mohawk. Pee.

Rinse off and get out of shower. Avoid bathmat.

Dry off forearms and butt only.

Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of tub the whole time.

Admire wiener size in mirror again. Shake it to watch water fly off.

Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on.

Return to bedroom with towel around waist.

If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and make the "woo-woo" sound again.

Throw wet towel on bed.