Having Children

This is the best site to really see if this is what you want. I'm not talking you out of having kids, I'm saying think about the undertaking that it is. Check out this site, especially the Child Prep tests:

Child Prep #1. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: Buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the tentacles hang out. Time allowed for this: all morning.

Child Prep #2. Get completely ready to go out. Then, 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 minutely inspect 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 into the house. You are now just about ready to take a small child for a walk.

Child Prep #3 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 chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacists to help themselves. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.

Child Prep #4. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

Child Prep #5 Find a couple who are already parents. Observe them for one evening. Then comment on 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, this will be the last time in your life that you have any clue about child rearing.

Child Prep #6. Forget the BMW and buy a Taurus. 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 and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a grease gun. Shoot some in the cassette player. Take three peeled bananas. Mash them down the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

Child Prep #7. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, first smear marmalade 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 flower beds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. Ask yourself, how does that look?

Child Prep #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 corn flakes and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the corn flakes 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.

Child Prep #9. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a bag of water weighing approximately 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, till 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.

Child Prep #10. 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 tape and a piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas tree decoration. Last, take a milk container, a ping pong ball, and an empty box of Coco Puffs and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations. You have just qualified for a place on the playground committee.

Child Prep #11. 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.

Child Prep 12, The Summary. Realize that after having children, nothing in the first eleven simple steps above will ever again hold any humor for you. They will be you.

Child Prep 13. Sample the Destructive Powers of Childhood. Borrow a dozen baseballs from your little league coach friend. Put on any type of helmet. In the room with the most windows, turn the ceiling fan on high. If you don't have a lot of windows a glass front hutch holding fine china will work nicely. While protecting yourself as best you can (you will get better at this after your children become teenagers) throw each baseball at the spinning fan.

Wondering why all the posts on not having children of late? It was actually part of the search for this Web page. This is really, truly funny, written in my very sense of sarcasm and whit - except that these are really good tips to try before you go forward and have your own little bundles of joy!