> 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 local chemist, tip the contents
> of your wallet onto 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 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
>
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 5 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 5-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
> 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.
>
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 6 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 5 times.
>
>
> Test 8
>
> Go 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 weeks
> 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 an airplane.
> 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!
