May 24, 2008

An expectant parent guide...

Heh heh, Aunty M sent me this a little while back so I thought I'd share because it made me laugh. A lot. It reminded me of the good ole days, around 2006 BM (before Madness).

FOLLOW THESE 14 SIMPLE TESTS BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO HAVE CHILDREN.

Test 1 - Preparation

Women: To prepare for pregnancy:-
1. Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.
2. Leave it there.
3. After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for children:-
1. Go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself
2. Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2 - Knowledge

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 - Nights

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 turned 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 11pm 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 4am.
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

1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.

Time Allowed: 5 minutes.

Test 5 - Cars

1. Forget the BMW. Buy a practical 5-door wagon.
2. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
3. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
4. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Test 6 - Going For a Walk

Wait.
Go out the front door.
Come back in again.
Go out.
Come back in again.
Go out again.
Walk down the front path.
Walk back up it.
Walk down it again.
Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
Retrace your steps.
Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
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 - Communication

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8 - Grocery Shopping

1. Go to the 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.
2. Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
3. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

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

Test 9 - Feeding a 1 year-old

1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into
the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
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.

Test 10 - TV

1. Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
2. Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.

Test 11 - Mess

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 fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
4. Empty every drawer/cupboard/storage box in your house onto the floor & leave it there.

Test 12 - Long Trips with Toddlers

1. Make a recording of someone shouting 'Mummy' repeatedly. Important Notes: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy. Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.
2. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.

You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13 - Conversations

1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.
2. Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.

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

Test 14 - Getting ready for work

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

You are now ready to have children. ENJOY!!

Fun tip:
Look into what it will take to freeze your kid when they're 12 and thaw them out again when they're 20. Take into account the cost, the red tape as well as any psychological damage, such as developmental delays or your child hating you with sadistic passion, that such a procedure may incur.

Serious tip: Breathe through the temper tantrums. If your Madness is anything like mine -- and when it comes to the actual tantrum, I would say that one toddler is the same as the next -- getting mad or trying to bring an end to it yourself will only escalate the situation, making it even more stressful for everyone. Breathe, your little baby can't help it.


May 23, 2008

Outtings!

Yesterday, we went to a zoo-like setting and let Madness go, well, mad with his good friend, Dimples. There is nothing quite as cute as watching two toddlers go completely nutters for some sealions, or jump back from Flamingos when they squawk.

Madness and Dimples play very well together, as long as neither of them have food they don't want to share with the other. There is a lot of running full pelt at each other, but no touching, which I suppose is normal for this age. They're around the same height, though Dimples is slightly smaller in stature, which Mrs Dimples and I discussed today.

All in all, it was lovely to get out and enjoy the public holiday. The sun was shining, and Madness showed every single person at the zoo his belly button, which is his new thing and precisley why I don't like putting him in onesies anymore!

He loved the animals, making monkey noises at all of them, except the actual monkeys. They had a playground there, and he and Dimples shared a waffle for afternoon tea. Awww. They shared their drinks, too and I can't wait to see them be old enough to worry about cooties.

Also good about day trips is Madness, while a bit nuts on the drive home and not eating all his dinner, goes to bed early and goes from zero to sleep in under 9 seconds.

Fun tip: When out and about with your Madness, and s/he starts going ahead with a temper tantrum or cute-yet-embarrassing behaviours, just carry on and pretend s/he belongs to someone else. This will save you from a lot of disapproving looks and judgements from petty idiots who probably don't have children.

Serious tip: As the Northern Hemisphere summer's approaching fast, it's important to remember the basics when taking outtings with your Madness. In Australia, we slip, slop, slap to protect ourselves from the sun: Slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat. It's not a bad idea to remember these sun safety basics for your baby. Also make sure you take plenty to drink! Dimples has a fabulous insulated metal drinking bottle that holds plenty of fluids and keeps it cold. Total drinking bottle envy, I'm grabbing the first one I see. I might get Madness one, too.

May 22, 2008

So lazy/busy!

Wow, so what kind of mothering blog doesn't commemorate Mother's Day? The slack kind, obviously.

I am also posting on the fly right now, as Madness is sleeping (ah, blessed nap time, I shall miss you when you're gone) and there is laundry to be sorted and a bedroom that desperately needs some TLC. Heh, my dirty mind is putting a twist on that particular sentence. Never mind.

I hope everyone got spoiled on Mother's Day. Madness and Big M gave me a hot chocolate massage. Mmmm. Massage. Mmmm. Chocolate. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm hot chocolate massage. Can't wait to book it, but I seem to have lost my ability to make simple phone calls. I have until November next year, though, so no rush on that!

No tips today, except... life is easier when you can keep on top of the laundry! Really.

May 3, 2008

Bubbles are my friend!

Since Madness entered the phase of Getting What He Wants Through the Art of Screaming Until He Gets It, I have struggled in the afternoons. Especially the rainy afternoons. What can we do when I am exhausted from the screaming and he is grumpy because I refuse to let him get away with that kind of behaviour?

Last week, on a whim, I bought a tube of bubbles. Madshee loves them in playgroup, and when he was smaller I would use them to distract him at busstops and train stations and during Mummy Time at cafés with friends. Now I use them nearly every afternoon when it’s rainy.

And peace reigns again in Casa Crikey. Well, something resembling peace, at any rate.

I still really hate the screaming, but if I ignore it, or if I can calm him down (when he lets me) then it’s not too bad. Mostly. And when all else fails, I can suffer safe in the knowledge that somewhere in my house is a tube of bubbles. Probably in a shoe or behind a book case.

Fun tip: Hire a bubble blower and take a nap in the afternoons while some random person is blowing bubbles with your Madness (shee).

Serious Tip: The bubble machines are great in that they blow lots and lots of bubbles. I don’t like them because hunkering down on the floor with Madness and blowing bubbles for him are really lovely, loving, bonding moments that I would miss out on if I ran a machine.