Maineiac

Lesson 1

• Go the supermarket.
• Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their main 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...

1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.

Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

To discover how the nights will feel...

1. Walk around the living room from 5 PM to 10 PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8 - 12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10 PM, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 PM.
4. Set the alarm for 3 AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2 AM and make a warm drink.
6. Go to bed at 2:45 PM.
7. Get up at 3 AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4 AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast.

Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out...

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed, then rub them on the clean walls.
4. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems...

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

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6

1. Get an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator.
2. Now get the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.
3. Last get a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 7

Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Get used to this by doing the following:

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the cassette player.
3. Take the family-size package of chocolate cookies, mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
   There... perfect.

Lesson 8

Repeat everything at least, if not more than, five times.

Lesson 9

1. Go to the local supermarket.
2. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (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 goats eat or destroy.

Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 10

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. The other half just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

Lesson 11

1. Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
2. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.

Lesson 12

Diapers.....

1. Move to the tropics.
2. Find or make a compost pile.
3. Dig down about halfway in and stick your nose in it.

Do this 3-5 times a day for two years.

Lesson 13

1. 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).
2. 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 14

1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.
2. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem, shirt sleeve, or elbow while playing the "Mommy" tape made from Lesson 13 above.

You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Lesson 15

Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day in which you have an important meeting.

1. Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.
2. Stir.
3. Dump it on your nice shirt. Also, saturate a towel with this.
4. Attempt to wipe it off with this towel.
5. Do NOT change. You have no time.
6. Go directly to work.

Lesson 16

Go for a ride, but first....

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

For the really adventurous... run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.

YOU ARE NOW READY TO HAVE KIDS!