ARE YOU READY FOR CHILDREN??

Thinking about having children?

Are your children thinking about having children?

Do your parents wish they never had children?

At birth, rather than being spanked, should children be stamped on the buttocks with a Surgeon General’s Warning?

FAQ

Is there any way to prepare yourself or your spouse for the advent of children? Of course there is. And I’ve done the painstaking research spending almost an entire hour grilling a priest, a nun and a hermit for advice.

Below are their recommendations. Feel free to do them in any order.

I. Go to a fair. Toss ping-pong balls into a fish bowl and come home with three goldfish. Feed them peanut butter, bits of lettuce, onion, Pepperoncini and baloney scraps. Meat bits might delight piranha, you’ll discover they do not work with gold fish.

New parents MUST master the art of pet internment. Fish burials are among the most frequent and the most serious rites. Popsicle stick tombstones, solemn processions in white robes – though hooded bath towels with Disney Characters will suffice. Chanting is mandatory. Following the funeral there will be innocent pleas for a new pet. Usually larger. Ponies are popular among young females. While the Tyrannosaurs Rex is still a perennial male favorite.

Go shopping --- Bring an orangutan, a goat or a hungry donkey into any grocery store in America. Extra points if it’s the day before Thanksgiving. Place the animal of your choice in the shopping cart – you may need to use various forms of persuasion. Consider your animal’s dietary preferences. See if you can keep your charge from touching, biting, eating, gumming, licking or kicking fellow shoppers or any stacks of grocery items. Extra credit if you bring all three animals into the arena and can keep them from touching, biting, licking or kicking each other.

Meals - Picture your young person or persons maturing. Do you vision include dinner at your abode? Is your table set? Is your meal served? Are your progeny seated? Napkins on their laps? Bibs beneath their chins? You are dreaming.

To get a real feeling for a nightly family dinner enter a zoo at feeding time. Find the BIG CAT’S CAGE. Observe as raw meat is tossed on the floor of their den. Note how each pussy cat is well mannered and more than willing to share a paw full of food.

Back at home, find a large jug of milk. Tie it to a ceiling fan and lower it to table height. Swing it back and forth. Now try to insert spoonsful of soggy Cheerios into the open mouth of the jug, at the same time flap one arm and pretend to be an airplane.

Bedtime – This takes commitment. Purchase a medium sized giant squid. Squids usually have two tentacles, eight arms, and can weigh 440 lbs and grow to 33 feet. But we’re only talking about a baby squid. Now put your squid into a pair of Batman pajamas. We’ll skip the diaper part. Tuck your squid into a bunk bed. Bring your squid 16 glasses of water. Read a story or sing a few versus of Octopuses Garden. Do this half a dozen times. If you can get your squid to nod off in less than two hours you’re ready for a 8lb child with only 4 appendages. DO NOT SKIP THE DIAPER PART.

Extra credit assignment: Several times during the night carry your squid around your living space. Sing to it. Pat it on the …… whatever you call a squid’s back.

Camping – use a Sharpie to mark every one of your child’s possessions with her/his name or “secret” mark. Number them.

There is no penalty if you child comes home with almost the same amount of clothes even if none of them has his name or secret mark. Hide your Sharpie or you will find your child has used the bathroom, hallway, living room, kitchen and at least one pet as a drawing board. Other reason for keeping gold fish.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Childless friends and older people who have forgotten the joy of raising children will give your children gifts which may include drum sets, trumpets, cymbals, whistles and fire trucks with realistic sirens…

Let me digress – We were going to get our children a pet. A cat. A dowager aunt heard this and decided it would be best to have a more mature cat, house trained etc. The more mature, house trained cat was welcomed into our house. Though three weeks later we had to explain where all those cute little kittens came from.

Before even considering having children, watch other people with their children. Feel free to offer comments on:

a.) Their parenting techniques.

b.) Their child’s behavior.

c.) Suggest ways to improve behavior.

d.) Recommend restaurants where their child’s table manners would be welcomed.

e.) Offer the names of religions and churches where their

child’s language might become would be an integral part to the ceremony.

You’ll find your comments welcome. Just as you will welcome similar comments when you have children of your own. Which segues perfectly into…..

Dear reader what can you add? Best response (s) will make it on the blog.

Riding in a Car?

Potty training?

The arrival of the second child?

Twins?

First day of school?

First sleep over?

Favorite – doll, blanket?

Be prepared; inevitable a time will come when you’re little darling stands in front of you, hands akimbo and say, “I didn’t ask to be born.”

Stare them right in the eye and say. “And we weren’t expecting you.”