Need a laugh?

There is some side-splitting stuff written about parenting these days. If you come across something amusing, even if it only elicits a smile, send it to me to share on this site.

The shopping trip

The names in this story have been changed to protect me from my daughters. The story I am about to tell you happened last weekend and according to my daughters was totally humiliating and totally unnecessary. Such drama queens!

My girls are 12 and 13 and they have grown heaps over the last six months and we needed to go shopping.  When Cate and Emma were little they wore cute little crop top bras but it was now time to buy their first ‘proper’ bra. I was so excited.

I remember mine and I once again told the girls about my first bra.  

I’d loved my first white bra with pink flowers. I don’t remember going out to buy it but I do remember I was late to the bra thing and was the only girl at school who was still wearing white Bonds singlets when I was 15. I was so jealous of my friends who actually had something to put into their pretty new bras and I wanted one too.

According to my girls – too much information!

We headed to the shops and Dad went off to do the grocery shopping.  

Cate and Emma wanted to go with him and skip this whole exercise but no, I dragged them off TO BE MEASURED!!

We found a helpful sales assistant and she took them and her tape measure into the fitting rooms. Each retreated to a separate change room as they weren’t going to share this experience. Unfortunately for them there were quite a few ladies trying on garments and they had to share. Once they were measured they started trying on bras. They wouldn’t even let me in until I demanded to have a look and made sure the bras fitted and looked nice. I couldn't believe my babies were so grown up.

To make matter worse the lady next door popped her head out and asked, “Is this first time shopping?”

This started a conversation amongst the ladies in the fitting rooms about our first bras and just added to the humiliation as the girls had no choice but to listen to a bunch of middle aged women discussing trainer bras!

Forty five minutes later and after trying on all the bras the sales assistant and I dragged in to show them, they made their choices and we left the lingerie department. I was feeling very warm and fuzzy about the experience I had just shared with my daughters. They couldn’t wait to get out of there.

It was made perfectly clear to me that this day would never be spoken about and I was never ever to put them through this experience again.

I can’t wait until next time!

© Kerry Malone

 

© Pauline O’Brien

 

© Pauline O’Brien

 

© Pauline O’Brien

 

© Pauline O’Brien

 

© Pauline O’Brien

10 things not to say or do to a pregnant woman

1. It’s just a myth that you eat for two.
2. I never had to wear maternity clothes.
3. Is what you are eating good for the baby?
4. My sister’s/roommate/cousin/friend went through 72 hours of labor. No drugs helped.
5. Why are you so sick and tired? I went jogging for five miles every day till I was 9 months.
6. Its OK honey, I like big butts.
7. Better get your sleep now!
8. Oh, you are pregnant. I thought you were just gaining weight.
9. You are so huge!
10. I left the hospital in my pre-pregnancy clothes. (LIAR!!)

Seasonal: It must suck to be pregnant in this heat!

PS – Don’t touch the pregnant belly unless I can touch your belly!

10 things to say to a pregnant woman

1. You look beautiful!
2. You are glowing.
3. You don’t look pregnant.
4. Your baby is lucky to have you as a mom.
5. Think of all the shopping.
6. You have to eat a little more each day.
7. You get to be on the receiving end of good manners (at least temporarily).
8. Nine months to pamper yourself.
9. You get to be part of a whole new world.
10. You are so lucky!

© Danielle Christopher

Trapped

I barricaded the stairs. I’d be safe upstairs. It couldn’t get to me there. I could hear it though. I could always hear it. It had a voice that screeched; it couldn’t be ignored. It made my heart race and entered my whole being though my stomach until I felt sick.

Where had it come from; this parasite? How had it managed to steal its way into my life? I turned my head for a moment and there it was. Nothing was the same any more. Now I lived in fear.

Two years ago my life was sweet. I had moved to a beautiful seaside town. My children were happy, my husband was happy and I was happy, at least I thought I was. But something sinister was lurking. Something lay hidden just waiting for the right opportunity, the right person to invite it in. I was that person. New to the town I trusted everyone, everything. I suspected nothing. To be honest though, I was happy for the distraction. My husband was working, the children were at school and I admit I was a bit lonely and I was curious but you know what they say about curiosity. And then it began to change. No longer happy with our symbiotic existence it detached itself and stole its way into our lives. I was responsible and now I felt helpless. There was no escape. I was trapped.

It’s not like it was violent although sometimes it would smash things on the tiles and the walls. It never seriously hurt any of us, just a slap in the face now and then. It seemed to find this pass time amusing and we all felt that it was important to keep it amused. We didn’t want it upset. We didn’t know its capabilities.

Earlier, as I tried to go to the bathroom it caught sight of me and with a voice that could wake the dead; it demanded that I come downstairs. It was hungry. It was always hungry. Panic rose in my throat. It howled. What did it want this time? Its preferences were always changing. Sometimes bananas, then only yoghurt or cheese or fish. What did it want today? I gave it a banana and waited. Its face was big and red and swollen. Its sparse teeth looked like tombstones pushing their way out of a deserted graveyard. Its hair was thin and unkempt.

And it smelled. It smelled really bad. I had to hold my breath to keep from dry retching. It bit into the banana and tiny bits of drool ran down its chin. It sneered at me and pushed more into its gaping mouth. I was nearly sick. Still it jammed the banana in and never once did it take its eyes off me. I didn’t move, then it swallowed and grinned its evil grin; banana filled the gaps between his teeth. It burped and clapped its starfish shaped hands.

Thank God, it was over. It let me go. I ran. I ran as fast I could barricading the stairs behind me. I cowered in the corner of my room and tried to block out the memory or its huge red head.

What was that? The stairs! What was that noise on the stairs? There was no doubt. It was coming up. It had broken through the barrier and it was coming up the stairs. I could smell it, my stomach heaved. I looked widely for a place to hide, in the wardrobe – too obvious, under the bed – no room. I froze. It pushed the door open, rushed at me and slapped me in the face. It did it again and again laughing hysterically. I held my hands up trying to protect myself but it kept coming slapping, scratching, pinching, biting and all the while laughing.

Then as suddenly as it had began it stopped and left leaving its stench behind. I could hardly breathe. I thought I was going mad as I rocked in the corner. It was looking for my children it had heard them come in from school and I could do nothing to protect them. I was paralysed with fear. A muted sound escaped my throat, I couldn’t swallow. I felt light headed and when I tried to stand everything went black. I awoke to the sound of my children screaming.

God help me – what was it doing to them?

“Mum!” they wailed. “For God’s sake Mum! Hurry up and change this stinking BABY!”

© Jackie Hosking www.motherbehavingbadly.blogspot.com

Raising kids…in recent history

Congratulations to all the kids who were born in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s:

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
 Riding in the back of a van – loose – was always great fun.

We drank water from the garden hose pipe and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because....

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were okay.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendos, X-boxes, video games or movies, 99 channels on cable, surround sound, mobile phones, text messaging, personal computers, Internet or Internet chat rooms.... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits/legal from these accidents.

We played with worms (well most boys did) and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out any eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Local teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

… and while you are at it, keep this to show your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Wibble Wobble Woes

I have never been brave. In fact, I have a morbid fear of needles, blood and gore. Two small boys haven’t diminished this sensitivity. If anything, their continual scrapes and skirmishes have only made it worse.

Recently, an alarming trend began in my son’s preschool class. Gaps started appearing and children developed a fascination for teeth – wobbly teeth!

I have observed that once a tooth wiggles, it must then be picked, poked, prodded and twisted through a sequence of garish manoeuvres. It is rarely let to stand up straight in the mouth, but sits askew, or hangs by a thread of root with jagged bits and fleshy gums exposed. Nothing is left to the imagination, and every gruesome stage must be broadcast far and wide, with visual evidence.

The fact that every child eventually loses a tooth – great gob fulls of them, in fact – doesn’t make the scenario any less disturbing.

Recalling childhood memories brings no comfort either. Slamming doors and fencing pliers were often mentioned, not that I succumbed to those. Catch me if you can! The potential blood, pain and scream factor still stands my hair on end. And I have to wonder at the hygiene of rusty pliers that roll around in dust and grit on the floor of the work ute? Not the cleanest things to go into a child’s mouth – always assuming they fit, of course!

But the real questions remain… What do you do when the dastardly tooth is dangling by a thread, but not falling out? More to the point, what will I do when my son, fingers clasping the offending incisor, blurts out excitedly, “I’f go’ a wobbwy toof!”

It’s enough to set my teeth on edge!

© Kathryn Apel

A Mom’s wishlist

Dear Santa,

I've been a good mom all year. I've fed, cleaned and cuddled my children on demand, visited their doctor’s office more than my doctor and sold 62 cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son’s red crayon, on the back of a receipt in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when I’ll find anymore free time in the next 18 years.

Here are my Christmas wishes:

• I’d like a pair of legs that don’t ache (in any color, except purple, which I already have) and arms that don’t hurt or flap in the breeze; but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the grocery store.

• I’d also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the third month of my last pregnancy.

• If you’re hauling big ticket items this year I’d like fingerprint resistant windows and a radio that only plays adult music; a television that doesn't broadcast any programs containing talking animals; and a refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where I can hide to talk on the phone.

• On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, “Yes, Mommy” to boost my parental confidence, along with two kids who don’t fight and three pairs of jeans that will zip all the way up without the use of power tools.

• I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting “Don't eat in the living room” and “Take your hands off your brother,” because my voice seems to be just out of my children’s hearing range and can only be heard by the dog.

• If it’s too late to find any of these products, I’d settle for enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same morning, or the luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without it being served in a Styrofoam container.

• If you don’t mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare ketchup a vegetable?

• It will clear my conscience immensely. It would be helpful if you could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding payment as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family.

Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is ringing and my son saw my feet under the laundry room door. I think he wants his crayon back.

Have a safe trip and remember to leave your wet boots by the door and come in and dry off so you don’t catch cold. Help yourself to cookies on the table but don’t eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet.

Yours Always, MOM...!

P.S. One more thing...you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my children young enough to believe in Santa.

The parenting journey

Clothes:
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your pregnancy is confirmed.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.

Preparing for the birth:
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn’t do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

The layette:
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes, colour-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?

Dummies:
1st baby: If the dummy falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the dummy falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.

Changing:
1st baby: You change your baby’s nappies every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their nappy every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their nappy before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.

Activities:
1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaner.

Going out:
1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.

At home:
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn’t squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.

Swallowing coins (a favourite):
1st child: You rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays.
2nd child: You carefully watch for the coin to pass.
3rd child: You deduct it from his allowance!!

Sometimes a job title helps…

A woman (Emily) renewing her driver’s license at the Transport office was asked by the clerk to state her occupation. She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself. “What I mean is,” explained the clerk, “do you have a job, or are you just a ......?”

“Of course I have a job,” snapped Emily. “I'm a mum.”

“We don't list ‘Mum’ as an occupation...... ‘housewife’ covers it,” said the clerk emphatically.

I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our local police station. The clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, “Official Interrogator” or “Town Registrar.”

“What is your occupation?” she probed.

What made me say it, I do not know... The words simply popped out.

“I’m a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.”

The clerk paused, pen frozen in midair, and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly, emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire!

“Might I ask,” said the clerk with new interest, “just what you do in your field?”

Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, “I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn’t?), in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out). I’m working for my Masters, (the whole bloody family), and already have four credits, (all daughters). Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money.”

There was an increasing note of respect in the woman’s voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.

When I got home, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants – ages 10, 7, and 3. Upstairs, I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6-month old baby), in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt I had triumphed over bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than ‘just another mum’.

Motherhood.....What a glorious career! Especially when there’s a title on the door.

 

The way children see things...

NUDITY

I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the back seat, “Mum! that lady isn't wearing a seat belt!”

HONESTY

My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he’d dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, “We better throw this one out too then, ‘cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago.”

OPINIONS

On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from his mother which read: “The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents.”

KETCHUP

A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup to come out of the bottle. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. “It’s the minister, Mummy,” the child said to her mother. Then she added, “Mummy can’t come to the phone to talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”

MORE NUDITY

A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women’s locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, “What’s the matter, haven’t you ever seen a little boy before?”

ELDERLY

While working for an organisation that delivers lunches to elderly folks, I used to take my 4-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. The various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs, unfailingly intrigued her. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, “The tooth fairy will never believe this!”

DRESS-UP

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, “Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit.” And why not, darling?” “You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.”

DEATH

While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead sparrow. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister’s son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: “Glory be unto the Faaaather, and unto the Sonnn .and into the hole he gooooes.”

SCHOOL

A little girl had just finished her first week of school. “I’m just wasting my time,” she said to her mother. “I can’t read, I can’t write and they won’t let me talk!”

BIBLE

A little boy opened the big family bible. He was fascinated as he leafed through the old pages. Suddenly something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. “Mama, look what I found”, the boy called out. “What have you got there, dear?” With astonishment in the young boy’s voice, he answered, “I think it’s Adam’s underwear!”

Why God made mums

These answers were reportedly given by 2nd-grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?

• She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
• Mostly to clean the house.
• To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?

• He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
• Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
• God made my Mum just the same like he made me. He Just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

• God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
• They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.
• Why did God give you your mother & not some other mum?
• We're related.
• God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s mums like me.

What kind of little girl was your mum?

• My mum has always been my mum and none of that other stuff.
• I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
• They say she used to be nice.

What did your mum need to know about your dad before she married him?

• His last name.
• She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
• Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mum marry your dad?

• My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mum eats a lot.
• She got too old to do anything else with him.
• My grandma says that Mum didn’t have her thinking cap on.

Who’s the boss at your house?

• Mum doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such a goofball.
• Mum. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
• I guess Mum is, but only because she has a lot more to do than Dad.

What’s the difference between mums & dads?

• Mums work at work and work at home & dads just go to work at work.
• Mums know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
• Dads are taller and stronger, but mums have all the real power cos that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend’s.
• Mums have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mum do in her spare time?

• Mothers don't do spare time.
• To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mum perfect?

• On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
• Diet. You know, her hair. I’d diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your Mum, what would it be?

• She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I’d get rid of that.
• I’d make my Mum smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
• I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Job description for a parent

by an unknown author

POSITION:
Mum/Mom, Mummy/Mommy, Mama/Ma, Dad/Daddy, Pa/Papa

JOB DESCRIPTION:
Long-term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organisational skills and be willing to work variable
hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities! Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects.

Must have ability to plan and organise social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.

Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and cleaning work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION:
None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
None required unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION:
Get this! You pay them! When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS:
While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life if you play your cards right.

 

Toddlerspeak

by Maria Asther Bascuna-Creo

If you have a toddler, chances are you have your own collection of Toddlerspeak. They range from the shocking to the amusing to the downright get-down-on-your-knees funny.

One scenario: four-year-old boy-next-door Josh loves coming to our house to play with my three-year-old Sanghaya. He’s so considerate and patient with her – the perfect gentleman – that she was prompted to propose one day, “Will you marry me?”
“No!” was the reply, but he was back the next day and held her hand all the way to the library (and back).

Then there are times when you are on the brink of erupting and they say something to put you back in perspective. A memorable one, as I struggled giving Sanghaya a bath:
(Irritated) “Stop Mummy! When you wash my ears I cannot hear!”

Such ‘cuteness’ though could sometimes be dangerous. Like the time she announced, rather loudly, “A big fat man!” with pointed finger to a man merely a foot away.

Or the embarrassing, “What a hunky guy!” when it was a younger, leaner man.

Good thing they are often forgiven by these people with whom we share footpaths and roads and parks. The reason being that they are “just kids.” Huh, I know better.

Don’t be deceived by their looks. Three-year-olds have very strong opinions on everything. And their take on certain world truths can sometimes be amazing.

Consider this:
“If we don't have boobies we will die.”

Indeed.

The Middle Wife

by an anonymous second-grade teacher

I’ve been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second-grade classroom a few years back. When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell, so I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it to school and talk about it, they’re welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica – a very bright, very outgoing kid – takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater. She holds up a snapshot of an infant.

“This is Luke, my baby brother, and I’m going to tell you about his birthday. First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom’s stomach and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.”

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

“Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans.

“She walked around the house for, like an hour, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ Now the kid's doing this hysterical duck walk, holding her back and groaning.

“My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn’t have a sign on the car like the Domino’s man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.” Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.

“And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!” This kid has her legs spread and her little hands are miming water flowing away. It was too much!

“Then the middle wife starts saying ‘push, push, and breathe, breathe.’ They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff, they all said was from Mom’s play-center, so there must be a lot of stuff inside there.”

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat.

I’m sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, if it’s show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another Erica comes along.

Preparation for children

Author Unknown

Follow these 15 simple tests before you decide to have children.

Test 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 remove 10% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for paternity, go to the local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help themself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2
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 wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel…
1) Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag
weighing approximately 4-6kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some 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 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4) Set the alarm for 3am.
5) As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6) Go to bed at 2. 45am.
7) Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off
8) Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.
9) Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off
10) Make breakfast.
Keep this up for five years. Look cheerful.

Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems…
1) Buy a live octopus and a string bag .
2) Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms
hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical five-door saloon.
And don't think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and
shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1) Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2) Get a coin. Insert it in the cassette player.
3) Take a family size package of chocolate biscuits, mash them into the
back seat.
4) Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
There … perfect!

Test 6
Get ready to go out.
1) Wait outside the toilet for half an hour.
2) Go out the front door.
3) Come in again.
4) Go out.
5) Come back in.
6) Go out again.
7) Walk down the front path/driveway.
8) Walk back up it.
9) Walk down it again.
10) Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11) Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least six questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
12) Retrace your steps.
13) Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
14) Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least five times.

Test 8
Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-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 goat(s) out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9
1) Hollow out a melon.
2) Make a small hole in the side.
3) Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4) Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be a plane.
5) Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6) 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 child.

Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Fimbles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.

Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish 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 crayon. How does that look?

Test 12
Make a recording of Janet Street-Porter shouting “Mummy” repeatedly. (Important: No more than a four second delay between each “Mummy” – occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). 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.

Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem/shirt sleeve/elbow while playing the “Mummy” tape made from Test 12 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14
Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:
1) Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.
2) Stir.
3) Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture.
4) Attempt to clean your shirt with the saturated towel.
5) Do NOT change. You have no time.
6) Go directly to work.

Test 15
Go for a drive, 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.
5) For the really adventurous… run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.
You are now ready to have kids!