Thursday, February 26, 2009

Parenthood

I've been down with the flu for the past 10 days... sorry for the delay in blog posts and even slow return on phone calls and emails. I got this email tonight that just had me cracking up and wanted to share...

Preparation for parenthood...

Lesson 1 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.

Lesson 2 Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents.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. Enjoy it. 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 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (orsome other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.2. At 10PM, 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 1AM.4. Set the alarm for 3 AM.5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink.6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.8. Sing songs in the dark until 4AM.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 raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there allsummer.3. Stick your fingers in the flower be d.4. Then rub them on the clean walls.5. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5 Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.1. buy a live 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.Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6 1.Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint, turn it into an alligator.2. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only scotch tapeand a piece of foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.3. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet ofCocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 7 Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. And don’t think you can leaveit out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t looklike that.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 tape or CD player.3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into theback seat.4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

Lesson 8 Get ready to go out.1. Wait outside the bathroom for a half an hour.2. Go out the front door.3. Come in again4. Go out5. come back in6. go back out again.7. Walk down the front walk.8. Walk back up it.9. Walk back down it again.10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes, stopping,inspecting minutely, and asking at least 6 questions about each cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insectalong the way.11. Retrace your steps.12. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand, until theneighbors come out and stare at you.13. Give up and go back into the house.You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Lesson 9 Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you canfind to a preschool child (a full grown goat is excellent) If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.1. buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of yoursight.2. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.Until you can accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 10 1. Make a small hole in the side of a melon and hollow it out.2. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.3. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into theswaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.4. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.5. Tip half of the remainder into your lap. The other half just throwup into the air.You are now ready to feed a 9-month old baby.

Lesson 11 Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Dora theExplorer, Barney, and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for five years.

Lesson 12 Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying “mommy” repeatedly. (important:no more than a four second delay between each “mommy”) An occasionalcrescendo to the volume of a supersonic jet is required.Play this recording in your car everywhere you go for the next fiveyears.

Lesson 13 Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day in which you have animportant meeting.1. Take a cup of cream, put in 1 cup of lemon juice, and stir.2. Dump half of the mixture on your shirt, and saturate a towel with theother half.3. Attempt to wipe off your shirt with the towel.4. Do NOT change. You have no time.5. Go directly to work.

Lesson 14 Go for a drive! But first…1. Find one large tomcat and six pitbulls.2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.3. Put the pitbulls in the front seat of your car.4. While holding something fragile, strap the cat into the child seat.5. Run some errands, removing and replacing the cat at each stop.You are now ready to run errands with a toddler-Enjoy!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Take two...

This is my cousins little girl - since she wasn't so sleepy on the first take I went back down last week to try again. She was having a great nap!





Thursday, February 12, 2009

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Monday, February 02, 2009

Way to go Steelers!

What an insane game! So exciting and nerve wracking! Sad to put away the jersey's till September...

Brand new

This beautiful little girl is my cousins baby (remember the maternity a couple weeks back) She was just not wanting to be put down the day I was there. She only slept about 5 minutes so we didn't get everything we had hoped for. She is beautiful!