Are you planning to have children? It is imperative that you are well-prepared for this. Here are some important lessons.

Lesson 1. 1. Go to the supermarket. 2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. 3. Go home. 4. Pick up the paper. 5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and 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. Read a few paragraphs of every article in your favourite mag, occasionally, continue the same article for a few more paragraphs -- up until it gets really interesting -- then stop. Never go back to the same piece again. Do the same with books, TV shows, or film tapes. (12 years minimum)

Lesson 4. To discover how the nights will feel. . . 1. Walk around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a WET HOT bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds , 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 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM. If you have a sore joint or a sprained ligament, make sure to put the hot wet bag on this spot. 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, gradually increasing the weight to some 70 pounds. (Remember, weight lifting is the best way to fight osteoporosis!) 10. Always look cheerful.

Lesson 5. 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 all summer. 3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed. 4. Then rub them on the clean walls. 5. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 6. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. 1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out 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. 3.Note, not all children are like octopus--many actually resist being changed or dressed. To learn to deal with a struggling, biting, and scratching baby, find a hungry stray cat and try to put either the mesh or a diaper on it. Don't attempt to perform both tasks at once, you may get seriously injured.

Lesson 7. Making deep meaningful art in your own home l. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. 2. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and 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 of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 8. Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. And don't think that you can leave it out in 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. 2. Leave it there. 3. Get a dime. Stick it in the cassette player. 4. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. 5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

Lesson 9. Get ready to go out. 1. Wait outside the bathroom 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. 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 6 questions about every cigarette butt, 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 neighbors 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.

Lesson 10. Repeat everything at least, if not more than, five times. Tape a child saying "No" in a defiant kind of voice. Have a conversation with this tape. Turn it on after every sentence.

Lesson 11. Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a preschool 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 goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 12. 1. Hollow out a melon. 2. Make a small hole in the side. 3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. 4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. 5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. 6. Tip half into your lap. The other half just throw up in the air. You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

Lesson 13. Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Disney. Watch nothing else on T.V. for at least five years.

Lesson 14. Move to the tropics. Find or make a compost pile. Dig down about halfway in and stick your nose in it. Do this 3-5 times a day for two years. Smile!

Lesson 15. Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying "mommy" repeatedly. (Important: No more than a four second delay between each "mommy"; 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.

Lesson 16. Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt sleeve, or elbow while playing the "mommy" tape made from Lesson FOURTEEN above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room. 2. Since not all children resort to mere tagging, borrow a child who loves gymnastics and instruct her to jump on your back, rearrange your hairdo, while, once in a while, attempting to turn your head 180 dergees to face her. (You may need a neck brace after that, forget about your hair, though)

Lesson 17. Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day in which you have an important meeting. 1. Take a cup of cream, and put a cup lemon juice in it. 2. Stir. 3. Dump it on your nice shirt. Also, saturate a towel with this mixture. 4. Attempt to wipe it off with this towel. 5. Do NOT change. You have no time. 6. Go directly to work.

Lesson 18. Go for a ride, but first. . . 1. Find one large tomcat and six pitbulls. 2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the backseat of your car. 3. Put the pitbulls in the front seat of your car. 4. While holding something fragile or delicate, strap the cat into the child seat. For the really adventurous. . . Run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.

Lesson 19. Buy a really good expensive king size bed. Go to bed early, read, make love, buy satin sheets, enjoy it to the fullest. Borrow a medium size child who loves gymnastics and dancing. Instruct the child to do certain gymnastic routines that involve flipping over the bed and landing on the opposite side. Let her do it until this side collapses. Sleep on this bed for the rest of your life (put the future father on the broken side, occasionally)

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