Lessons to Follow Before Entering Parenthood

Our adoption agency gave us some material to read about adoption and infertility etc., and I found and article entitled: 'Thinking of Having Kids?  Follow These Lessons Before You Enter Parenthood.'  They're so funny!  Here's my favorite ones:

Lesson One:
1. Find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their
     a. Method for discipline
     b. Lack of patience
     c. Appallingly low tolerance levels
     d. Allowing their children to run wild.
2. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
3. Enjoy your last time doing this.

Lesson Two:
1. Smear Peanut Butter onto the sofa and some jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed and then rub them on the clean walls.
4. Cover the stains with Crayon.

Lesson Three:
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Lesson Four:
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it on the glove compartment of your car.  Leave it there.
2. Get a dime.  Stick it in the cassette player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies.  Mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of your car.  There.  Perfect!

Lesson Five:
1. Go to the local supermarket.
2. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a preschooler, a full grown goat is excellent.
3. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
4. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight.
5. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.


Lesson Six:
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap.
7. Throw the other half up in the air.

Lesson Seven:
1. Make a recording of Fran Drescher ('The Nanny') saying "Mommy" repeatedly.
2. Leave no more than a four second delay between each "Mommy".
3. Include an occasional crescendo of this sound to the decibel level of a supersonic jet.
4. Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years.

Lesson Eight:
1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.
2. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt sleeve, jeans or elbow while playing the tape made from the previous lesson.

Lesson Nine:
1. Find a large tomcat and a pitbull.
2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.
3. Put the pit bull in the front seat.
4. While holding something fragile or delicate, strap the cat into the car seat.

Okay, NOW YOU'RE READY!!


Whew!  They sound pretty intense.  I wonder what actually trying to do these would be like...probably like being a parent!