Preparation for ParenthoodPreparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books anddecorating the nursery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parentsto take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being amother or father. 1. Women: to prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick abeanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months,take out 10% of the beans. Men: to prepare for paternity, go the local drug store, tip thecontents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist tohelp himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salarypaid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper andread it for the last time. 2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple whoare already parents and berate them about their methods ofdiscipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, andhow they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways inwhich they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilettraining, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it - it'll be thelast time in your life that you will have all of the answers. 3. To discover how the nights feel, walk around, the living room from5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 lbs. at10pm 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 1am. Put the alarm on for 3am. As you can't get back to sleep,get up at 2am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45 am. Get up again at3am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put thealarm on for 5am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful. 4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanutbutter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish fingerbehind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers inthe flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains withcrayons. How does that look? 5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy anoctopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the stringbag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - allmorning. 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 scotchtape and a piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas tree. Last, take amilk container, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Coco Puffsand make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations, youhave just qualified for a place on the playgroup committee. 7. Forget the Miata and buy a Mini Van. And don't think you can leaveit out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't looklike that. Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glovecompartment. Leave it there. Get a quarter. Stick it in the cassetteplayer. Take a family-size packet of chocolate cookies. Mash them downthe 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. Goout 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. Walkvery slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutelyevery cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and deadinsect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had asmuch 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 trytaking 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 youcan find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. Ifyou intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buyyour week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Payfor everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easilyaccomplish this do not even contemplate having children. 11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it fromthe ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggyFroot Loops and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon bypretending to be an airplane. Continue until half of the Froot Loopsare gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of itfalls 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, SesameStreet and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When you find yourselfsinging "I love you, you love me" at work, now!, you finally qualifyas a parent.
|1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already. 2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses. 3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration. 4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them. 5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations. 6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given. 7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero. 8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year. 9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind. 10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it. 11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task. 12. I know that the work cycle is not plan-start-finish, but is wait-plan-plan. 13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever. 14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized
More One-liners worth passing on. . . Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious. In two words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. S$$T HAPPENS!. Accept than some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue. The best vitamin for making friends: B1. If you can't be the tablecloth, don't be the dishrag. I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem. I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves. I'm not just a gardener, I'm a Plant Manager. On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key. You're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter. I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. There are two rules for ultimate success in life: (1) Never tell everything you know. Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it. Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car. There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get any worse. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives. You'll never be the man your mother was!Drive defensively. Buy a tank. Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today!God did not create the world in 7 days; he messed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter.
Plan ahead. . . It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. Stay fit. When you're 600 years old, someone might ask you to do something REALLY big. Don't listen to critics - do what must be done. Build on high ground. For safety's sake, travel in pairs. Two heads are better than one. Speed isn't always an advantage. The cheetahs were on board. . . but then so were the turtles. Take care of your animals as if they were the last ones on earth. Don't forget that we're all in the same boat. When things get really deep, don't sit there and complain--shovel!Stay below deck during the storm. The ark was built by amateurs and the Titanic was built by professionals. If you have to start over, have a friend by your side. Remember that the woodpeckers inside are often a bigger threat than the storm outside. Don't miss the boat. Repeat. . . Do NOT miss the boat. . . No matter how bleak it looks, there's always a rainbow on the horizon.
1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already. 2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses. 3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration. 4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them. 5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations. 6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given. 7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitely small, is not exactly zero. 8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year. 9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind. 10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it. 11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task. 12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan. 13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever. 14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized.
1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already. 2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses. 3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration. 4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them. 5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations. 6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given. 7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesimally small, is not exactly zero. 8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year. 9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind. 10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it. 11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task. 12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan. 13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever. 14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized.
The String And Octopus Guide To Parenthood by Colin BowlesPreparation 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 pharmacy, 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 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 lbs. At 10pm, 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 1am. Put the alarm on for 3am. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45am. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful. 4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, first smear ice cream onto the sofa and strawberry jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish stick behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds 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 a live octopus and a fishnet bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the fishnet 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 cellophane 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 Peugeot 205 and buy a Sierra. 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 popsickle and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a pencil and wedge it firmly in the cassette player. Take a family-size packet of chocolate biscuits. Mash them down into the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect. 8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the bathroom 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 be 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 oatmeal and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half of the oatmeal 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.
Some fun rules1. I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. 2. I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by. 3. Am I getting smart with you? How would you know? 4. I'd explain it to you, but your brain would explode. 5. Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car. 6. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives. 7. Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it. 8. Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue. 9. Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If he isn't there the first time you need him, chances are you won't need him again. 10. I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem. 11. Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling? !"12. My Reality Check bounced. 13. On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key. 14. I don't suffer from stress. I'm a carrier. 15. You're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter. 16. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, 'cuz, like, you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. 17. Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. And,18. Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.
Q. What did the snail say when he climbed onto the turtles back? A. WHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!