How to Prepare for Parenthood

My brother sent me this email a year ago. It's even funnier to me now.

How To Prepare For Parenthood:

Lesson 1: Go to the grocery store. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2: Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their: Methods of discipline. Lack of patience. Appallingly low tolerance levels. Allowing their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it, because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 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 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. At 10 p.m., put the bag down, se t the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 a.m. and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 a.m. Set the alarm 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 at 3 a.m. when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4 a.m. Attempt to fall asleep, then finally give up around 6 a.m. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Lesson 4: Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower bed. Then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5: Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this: all morning.

Lesson 6: Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime and stick it in the CD player. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies and mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

Lesson 7: Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-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 goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8: 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 Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air. You are now ready to feed a nine-month-old baby.

Lesson 9: Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying "mommy" repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each "mommy;" occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 10: Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirtsleeve, or elbow while playing the mommy' tape made from Lesson 9 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.