11 Step Program For Parenting

I friend of mine sent this to me. I thought it was pretty funny. I don't know the original source and I'm not claiming this as my own doing. Enjoy.

11 Step Program for those thinking of having kids
Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
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.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently 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.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? T o 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. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5
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.

Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. 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.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely 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 8
Dinner time
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 nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10
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 11
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 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Obviously this is intended for fun and nothing serious. Hope you enjoyed it.

Less than usual posting

Just wanted everyone to know they should expect less than normal post counts. My Master's classes have resumed and the one I have this semester is requiring a lot of time. It's only going to get worse. I will continue with updates and pictures of Landon, which I'm already way behind on some planned posts, but hang in there and I promise you won't be disappointed. In case you were wondering, the class I am taking is call "Mechanical Applications of Partial Differential Equations." Yea, it's as fun as it sounds.

Anyway, I just wanted everyone to know what is going on. We are doing well, just staying busy keeping up with Landon in addition to work and other things, like house and school work. One quick note about Landon: he's doing MUCH better eating table foods than he was. The gag reflex is going away, although he will still do it. He's eating a lot more food and is doing well. We are very relieved and happy he is eating.

Keep checking for more updates. You might get surprised and find I posted some pictures.

Landon Updates

It's been a while since the last post about Landon. He is really growing fast. Last week he hit the 13 month milestone. It is hard to believe. He is full of energy and loves to play as often as he can. Unfortunately, he likes to play with things he isn't supposed to have. This gets him in trouble and we take away whatever he has grabbed (usually a phone or something similar). This sometimes leads to Landon pitching a fit, which isn't what we were expecting at this age. We knew he would get upset, but sometimes he has full blown meltdowns. Like, laying on the floor crying and screaming or running away crying and yelling as loud as he can. This gets him in more trouble. Obviously, we are trying to get him to stop that. Hopefully it's just a phase. I'm afraid it's only going to get worse. I wasn't expecting these things until he was around two.

He also likes repeating what he did to get in trouble. He thinks it is a game. Even when he gets in trouble. If we tell him no, he only wants it more. A recent development is that he really likes attempting to get his hands into the toilet. He tries even harder now that we have told him no. He knows when he is doing something wrong, too. He's very sneaky and clever. Landon will wait until we're not watching something that will get him in trouble, then he will sneak over and grab it. He'll also do it right in front of us, laughing the whole time. Then it is a mad dash away from us as fast as he can. Yea, he's running now. He's pretty quick and elusive, too. He already is a handful, I can't imagine how it's going to be this time next year.

Landon is really into his toys. He loves to play. His favorite thing right now is trucks. He loves pushing them around. He also likes flipping them over and spinning the wheels. He's infatuated with wheels. The stroller, our cars, any toys, etc. He loves them. Something he loves just as much as wheels are books. He loves to read. He will grab a bunch of books for you to read to him or sit on the ground and flip through the pages. He has to have the thicker cardboard books, or else the pages will be ripped. He likes to tear paper.

He is learning a lot of new things. It is hard to remember everything he has done since the last update, but it is a lot. We got him a slide and play center for his birthday, and he loves to slide down that. He likes to ride on his toys now. I'll push him around the house on those and he just laughs. Landon has a small soccer ball that he likes to kick around. He'll also grab the other balls and throw them. Landon is also in the climbing stage. Steps, toys, people, presents - he likes to climb up on top of everything. He is figuring out things work. We watched him try to open the door the other day. If the door is cracked, he can open and shut it easily. But the other day he was on his tip-toes grabbing the door knob. We have the circular knobs, so he couldn't really grab onto it, but he knows you have to turn it to make it open. Similarly, I've been letting him turn the lights on and off with the light switch. He seems to understand it, although I think it's just fun to flip the switch. He still loves to watch the public TV channel with all of the cartoons. His favorite show is Super Why, but his favorite character is Elmo. He loves Elmo.

That's just a little of what we have been doing with Landon. It seems like he is always learning something new, or new ways to get into things he isn't supposed to be. He's becoming more of a handful than I expected at this age. Hopefully we can figure out how to keep him from things, but I have a feeling it is something we are going to deal with as we go.

Snow Day

We're currently enjoying a day at home thanks to the "snow". Really, it's more ice than snow, but we'll call it snow because it sort of looks like snow. The driveway and cul-de-sac are all slush. Our neighbors have an Expedition, a large F-250, and a convertible Mustang (they're Ford people, obviously). What did the guy drive to work on the iciest day of the year? The Mustang, naturally. I could hear someone else spinning their tires this morning. Thankfully both Christi and my workplaces closed for the day. People down here can't drive in icy conditions. It's not even worth trying.

We're hoping to get out in the snow, but I'm unsure if we will take Landon out there. Because it's so icy, I know it will be really wet and cold once we get out in the snow. We definitely don't want him to catch a cold, so we likely just stay inside and watch movies all day.

Speaking of movies, we got ourselves a Netflix subscription. We love it. I can stream it on the PS3 or Wii and we also get the DVDs by mail. We have already watched a bunch of movies. The problem we are having now is that we are running out of movies we can think to watch. We're about to start getting some we haven't seen in a while. If you have any favorite movies you think we should check out, let us know in the comments.

Christmas Pictures

We mixed things up this year for Christmas. Normally we have breakfast with Christi's parents, open presents, lunch at their place, then leave for my family's lunch and presents with my mom. That afternoon we go to my dad's house. Considering it was a 30 minute drive from Christi's parents to my family's place, another 30 minutes from there to my dad's, and finally a 30 minute drive back to our place, it was quite a bit of travel. Last year we did it in 2 days instead of 1, but with Landon being 1 now we decide we wouldn't be able to do the normal routine.

This year we had both families (parents, grandparents, and siblings) over at our house for breakfast. After that, my family stayed and we exchanged gifts. Then, we went over to Christi's parents' place to eat lunch then open presents. It worked out much better for us. Everyone brought something to eat for breakfast, so we had a big buffet to chose from. After lunch, all we had to do was exchange presents instead of worrying about going to both of my parents houses to make sure we spent an equal amount of time with everyone. Not only that, but all the running around we normally did took a toll on you by the end of the day, which would normally end by 10pm or so. That would not be possible with Landon this year.

It was a relaxing day. Landon got tons of gifts, much more than we expected. We're still in the process of sorting out what will go where as well as what to do with all of the things he had. Honestly, we don't have room for all of it. Most is sitting in another room while we decide what to store and what to donate or sell. We've got some work to do.

All in all we had a great Christmas Weekend. We think the change of routine worked out well for everyone. Landon got to stay and play with his presents in the morning, and everyone got to see him enjoy his presents. We also spent probably more than the normal amount of time with everyone since we didn't have to arrive late and leave early at each place. Hopefully this routine will stay for a while. I think it went well.

Here are some pictures of our Landon enjoying Christmas

Landon helping us decorate



Landon and Christi looking at the tree



Landon trying to sneak by us to get to the tree



Landon is working hard to get those ornaments. He also loves playing with shoes.



New stockings



Ho Ho Ho



New decoration



Playing with Santa toys Christmas morning



Getting ready to try out that zebra rocking horse



Enjoying another toy



Still had bed head



New chair to play in!



Rocking the Santa shoes



Landon had a great time playing with the presents, especially climbing on them and attacking the bows



Opening a present



Again, on top of a present



Playing on the phone with Sappoo



Family picture



Santa came at Papa and Kaye-Kaye's house too



Playing with Papa



Landon and Nana



Elmo! (Landon loves Elmo)

That's just a few of the many pictures we took. Hope you enjoyed them. Let me know if you like this style or the slideshow pictures better. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a Happy New Year!