With all the pregnancies and new parents I've been reading about on other Blogs lately I thought it was time to post a little help from your friendly neighborhood Zed...As we all know preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real life experience of being a mother or father.

1. Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick
a beanbag chair down the front. Leave it there for nine months. After
nine months remove 10% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for paternity, go to the local drug store, tip the
contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help
himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have you salary paid
directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper and read it
for the last time.

2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, 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 riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve
their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall
behavior. Enjoy it....it's the last time in your life that you will have
all the answers.

3. To discover how the nights feel, walk around the living room from
5 p.m. till 10 p.m. carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 lbs.
At 10 p.m. put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
Get up at 12 a.m. and walk around the living room again with the bag
until 1 a.m. Put the alarm on for 3 a.m. At this point, you can't go back to sleep, get up at 2 a.m. and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45 a.m. Get up again at 3 a.m. when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark till 4 a.m.
Put the alarm on for 5 a.m. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for
5 years. Look cheerful.

4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut
butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish stick
behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in
the flower beds then rum them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with
crayons. How does that look?

5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. First buy an
octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string
bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this: all
morning.

6. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a can of paint turn
it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube. Using only scotch
tape and a piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas tree. Last take a milk
container, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Coco puffs and make
an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations, you have just
qualified for a place on the play group committee.

7. Forget the Miata and buy the minivan. And don't think you can leave
it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look
like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glove
compartment. Leave it there. Get a quarter. Stick it in the cassette
player. Take a family size bag of chocolate cookies. Mash them down the
back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There!
Perfect!

8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the toilet for half an hour. Go
out the front door. Come in again. go out. Come back in. Go out again.
Walk down the front path. Walk back up it again. Walk down it again.
Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely
every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead
insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you've has as much
as you can stand until all of the neighbors come out and stare at you.
Give up and go back in the house. You are now just about ready to try
taking a small child for a walk.

9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

10. Go to your 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. Buy
your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay
for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish
this do not even contemplate having children.

11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from
the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy
Froot Loops and attemtp to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending
to be an airplane. Continue until half of the froot loops are gone.
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.

12. Learn the names of every character from Barney and Friends, Sesame
Street, and Blues Clues. When you find yourself singing, "I love you,
you love me." at work, you are finally qualified as a parent.

Listening To: The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again