Originally posted on UK parenting website Mamami, the 14-part test will have you holding your sides with laughter, and nodding in agreement – I amended a few and added a few points.

Read, nod, laugh then forward on to a friend who thought she would have a baby, because it looks so easy.  And fun.

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

1. 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.
2. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour.
3. 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 hangout.
3. When you think you might be getting this right, buy a cat with long hair.
4. Attempt to bath the cat, dry the cat, dress the cat, and do the cat’s hair with two ponytails.

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. Remove all your good CD’s and keep only a Barney one, which you will need to play every time you get into the car.  Eventually you will be sticking a coin in the CD player.
6. Throw shoes/socks/underwear and McDonalds takeaway boxes around the car, and smear KFC chicken along the windows – eye height would be a good reference point.

Test 6: Going for a walk

1. Wait.
2. Go out the front door.
3. Come back in again.
4. Go out.
5. Come back in again.
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 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.
15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7: Conversations with children

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

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 and proceed with step 5.
5. Drag randomly items from one room to another room and leave them 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

Want to check out the original article, look here!

He is named for the character Dexter Morgan, in the series “Dexter!”

I am seriously one Xanax away from starting a Dexter Blog.

I am nervous about starting one, because I think when you start writing a blog from a dog’s perspective, and whose highest point of his day is to lick his balls, and biting Annabelle’s nose.

There is a good chance that the blog is going to be a bit more labour, and a lot less love.

I purchased Dexter through Caroline van Deventer, who is a breeder and lives up country.

I had done a fair amount of research on the breed at the point of approaching a breeder, and had seen them at shows, and spoken to a few Boston Terrier people.  I prefer to get my dogs via breeders, as I usually have aspirations of dog showing.

I am not knocking anyone or making judgement or suggesting you change the way you acquire a dog for your home.  If you feel strongly about people getting their dogs through shelters and so on, really that is fine.  My choice is just a bit different.

And here is the key.  It is my choice!

I chatted telephonically and via email to Caroline, and at the end of the day I had to trust her decision.

I had just gone through a 2 – 3 month process with another breeder, that in the end resulted in me cancelling the puppy, and walking away from the arrangement, so I did start this process thinking “well, this may not go well.”

Caroline was professional thorough and like a good breeder was a good resource for advise and suggestions on Boston Terriers.  Dexter was sent to us in a crate and we collected him at the airport in January 2012.

Dexter had managed to shit the crate full — like spray painted the walls in faeces.  I did think this was rather fitting considering his name, and considering Dexter Morgan also started off in a cargo crate sprayed with bl0od.

I posted a picture recently and showing progress on my “dog training” with Dexter through Cape Province Dog Training.

What you can’t see is the other dogs and distractions happening off to the side.

Dexter was following a “stay-sit-stay” command, and I was showing off a bit by dropping his lead.

I am meant to step away from him, and he is meant to remain in the sitting position for a full minute, until I return to his right hand side and release him from it.

Four weeks ago, I would not have believed there was a hope in hell of this ever happening.  So I can’t quite hide my excitement when “dog training” actually appeared to be working, and for a short moment in time, I realise I was in deed the pack leader.

Dexter is a fine looking lad, and even by Boston Terrier standards he is quite a hottie!

Caroline posted this picture of Dexter when he was a wee puppy —-

How freaking cute is that??

They have two gorgeous boys Finn and Noah.

We have been meaning to try and get them to write to each other, or something, just to reinforce the knowledge that they were cousins, and …. well, for no other reason.

Last night we set up a Skype chat.  Me and my three kids on one chair all trying to peer into the laptop camera.

Jackie, and her two boys – who were jumping on her bed at the same time as chatting to us.

It was such a wonderful experience.  You sort of forgot that a few thousand kilometers separated us.  My kids were in varying stages of excitement and interest.  While Finn was talking, we were watching Noah in the background unpacking his mom’s pyjamas, and then suddenly revealed Jackie’s underwear.

The kids chatted as if they were sitting across the table from one another.

Both sets of kids struggled a bit to always understand the accent of the other.  Connor wanted to know why they spoke funny – I tried to explain to him that to them, we speak funny.

We all agreed Georgia spoke the funniest.  Georgia speaks with a “I was born in Hollywood” twang, but was originally from Hamstead.  No idea where that comes from.

The highlight for me was when Finn asked if Connor knew “gangam style” – to which Connor sheepishly admitted he did.  Jackie then found the song on her ipad, played it and then all the kids danced to gangam style.

Connor sat this one out.

All an over feel good experience.  And remembering again that Gangam Style is the international dance of friendship.  And cousins.

Sometimes it is really nice to have kids.

Thanks Skype, you worked that like a boss!

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so this gives you a gap and to see you would have to scroll, and thus will not be surprised by an image on your screen unless you choose to scroll down to view

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still a gap not to view

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I used to watch a “having a baby” show on one of the lifestyle channels.  There was not much difference in each episode.  Follow lady/woman/family who is pregnant.  Lady tells her story.  Lady has her baby.

No matter who lady was.  No matter where lady was, or how lady had her baby – each and every time said baby entered the world, I would sit there blubbering like a lunatic.

At some point I had to have a serious talk with myself that really the show is pretty predictable, and I can not cry every time I see a baby born.

I cannot afford that much mascara.  And sometimes I forget I have mascara and end up fetching the kids looking like a panda.  But not the healthy kind.

I stumbled across this website and the images made me sigh, smile, and then sigh some more.

The website has the images of the year for babies being born/newborn, there is shortlisting, and voting.

I am not sure who won, but these are a few of my favourite outstanding moments captured by gifted photographers.

————–

{images have been removed – please visit http://birthphotographers.com/2012-international-association-of-professional-birth-photographers-image-of-the-year-competition/ to view them there.

You do this, you get to watch tv or …… {insert appropriate reward}

I am sure someone did a study, and if you only mothered in a happy cheerful way, continually calling your child “kidlet” and your husband “hubbie”, then you will produce a happy centered child.

I am sure that is true.

I however am aiming for sanity, and hopefully a stable enough child who can hold his/her own as they step out into the playground/bigger world, without mommy by their side.

The Sofia the First crown and sash was going to be one of these things that either ended badly, with me tossing it out the window whilst driving 120 km on the N1 saying “There, now no one has it, and if I hear another peep out of you, the doggie is going out the window as well …. I dare you to say another word..”  or the girls would understand the concept of “it is your day today” and share.

Fortunately extreme-lunatic mothering was not needed.

I explained how lucky we were to get such a lovely sash and crown, and that you could wear it and be “Princess for a Day.” Then the next day it was your sister’s turn, and then yours and so on, and so on.

I either sold it really well, or my girls were wide-eyed and delirious with the possibility of a sash and a crown, were willing to agree to just about anything.

Today Georgia has it, and she could take it to school – Isabelle will get it tomorrow.

Isabelle did hide it away last night in the hope that Georgia did not find it.  Isabelle eventually decided to be the bigger three year old, and hand it over to Georgia — it was quite a solemn little ceremony actually.

So far so good.

{I still have not sat down with Connor about the record-breaking-hiding-the-evidence issue, and I need to address that and the subsequent punishment and more importantly the issue of  ”hiding evidence”.   Kennith was away, so hopefully tonight we can have a “family meeting” and chat through that}

Isabelle has been all over the idea of “annie and ampa” for ages, so I figured a Skype call with a video would work as a decent substitute until I can make a plan to get out there.

Jostling for space on the couch – me screams: “Connor, get your snake off your sister’s head!!”

Hope you had a good mother’s day!

Check out Reluctant Mom on Faceb00k!

Both my girls love princess things.  Definitely more Georgia than Isabelle.

Isabelle wore a penguin hat all day on Sunday but told everyone she was a chicken —  she might be into farm animals more, but she is failing on the ability to recognise farm animals, which we need to look in to.

Isabelle only likes princess stuff if Georgia is holding a princess thing, and Isabelle wants it now.  From her.

Isabelle will invoke the “share share share” request usually associated with wild arm waving, a grabbing motion and snot collecting on her upper lip.

I have given up trying to dissuade the girls that princesses lack career paths, any ambition and appear to have no aspirations other than marrying well.

Trying to deny your girl child the right to become the princess she dreams about, is about as futile as trying to deny your boy child the right to play with guns.

I do not buy guns for my boy child, ever.  But sooner or later he is going to make a “gun” out of macaroni and stand around going “peeuw-peeuw” whilst you roll your eyes and wonder where it all went so wrong.

Girls are going to want to be princesses.  Boys are going to want to make guns and jump off the roof into the pool.

Accept it.  Ensure your medical aid is up to date (for the boys) and take your credit card out for a little run (for your girl.)

The folks over at Walt Disney’s PR company contacted me and asked me if I would kindly tune my DSTV to channel 309 (Junior Disney) - Sofia the   First on Saturday 11 May at 09:00.

Okay, so I have missed that date, but definitely booked the TV lounge for Saturday the 18th May 2013.

So the folks over at the PR place say:  While Disney princess fairytales have been enchanting audiences for more than 70 years, this is the first time a series has centered on a princess as a little girl.

The stories are designed to communicate positive messages and life lessons that are applicable to preschool-aged children. The series is a production of Disney Television Animation.

Sofia the First stories are set in the storybook world of young Sofia who starts out life as a regular girl. But when her mum marries the king, she is whisked off to a glamorous, but sometimes confusing, castle world of royalty, pomp and new step-siblings, Amber and James.

Sofia the First will include appearances by Fauna, Flora and Merryweather (fairies seen in Disney’s classic Sleeping Beauty) as the headmistresses of Royal Prep, the academy that Sofia, along with other princes and princesses, attends.

Special event appearances will be made by classic characters including Cinderella and other Disney Princesses.

Nancy Kanter, Senior Vice President, Original Programming and General Manager, Disney Junior Worldwide, said, “In Sofia, we have a ‘peer to peer princess,’ a relatable girl experiencing the same social issues as our young viewers – learning how to fit in, making new friends, conquering new skills and building sibling relationships.”

She continued, “Although Sofia will have plenty of pretty dresses and sparkly shoes, our stories will show Sofia, and our viewers, that what makes a real princess is what’s inside, not what’s outside. That the inner character of kindness, generosity, loyalty, honesty and grace make you special, not the dress you wear.”

I received a box today, with a cute sash – I was going to wear that with the crown, but they sash was not exactly fitting around my torso.

I see Sofia the First has a little roll out number of good manners.

I am really curious how that is going to unfold this evening as I present 1 crown and 1 matching sash to 2 girls!!  I think Georgia will run faster, I think that Isabelle will punch harder.

Catch Sofia the First on a small screen near you — I suggest parking the kids in front of the show, and you lying on the couch with a cup of tea and a book.

I have one Junior Disney pack to give away.  Unfortunately it is not Sofia the First, but maybe because the girls are getting a cool new princess show, we can send something to the boys, or to a girl who digs pirates.

I will pick one at random end of day Friday, 17 May 2013 — again just leave a comment and tell me whose voice will be used in the new show Sofia the First, as Sofia.  The First.

Here is a hint: Ariel Winter from Modern Families.

Actually it is not a hint it is the answer.

I will pick one at random, and send you a Disney Lunchbox, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates: Stickers,  Height Chart, Necklace and Head band.  Easy peasy.

No need to like anything, or promise me your first born.  Just leave a comment.  With the answer I have just given you.

I am a get quiet when I am really cross person.

If I am ranting like a lunatic then you know this will blow over relatively quickly. If I purse my lips, go quiet and stare at you, then it is pretty much time to flee — or at the very least, just back off and give me some space because the little voices in my head are all screaming.  And not in unison.

This evening I was sitting with the kids doing homework.  At some point I started telling them about how records work.

In no way related to the subject at hand.

I was all telling them stuff and reliving the year we discovered electricity and all. I dip my hand into the record sleeve and start explaining how the record needle works, and and and ….. all quite jazzy, and much more “show and tell” than I would normally would be.  But there I am giving this sane mommy thing a run for it’s money.

I look into the record jacket and see that one of the records is broken.

Connor starts explaining … quickly …. how he was showing Georgia and it fell and it broke and he is so sorry.

I know Connor.  One does not pass a record from Connor to Georgia.

My guess is they were monkeying – he was probably the instigator  and Georgia’s ball skills are atrocious.  My guess is her record catching skills are left wanting at about the time Connor lobbed it across the room.  Frisby anyone?

It is an old record.  Gigi actually.  Very little sentimental value.  I had found it in a second hand store and it had the original jacket, and I wanted to frame it.

I am so angry.  Not because they had broken the record (okay also because of that) but because they thought they could hide it from me, and only confessed when they realised I had started a rather unfortunately timed “show and tell!”

I was so angry.  White lips, quivering angry.

I really hate deceit. I really do.  I knew he thought he had got away with it, and then he is like “what the hell, show and tell now!!  Now!!!”

I sent Connor and Georgia to bed – it was 18h23.

I stripped her of her “Princess for a Day” title.  I could see Connor was the more sorry.  But he always is.  In this case I know he was the instigator and he was the one who hid it.  How?  My spidey sense that all moms have.

I went d0wn the passage now to check they were in bed, and no one had bailed over the wall to make a run for it.  Connor has written this very long, very heart felt letter about how sorry he is.  It includes a graphic of him crying.  The boy has mad illustration skills.

I am at that juncture where Connor has been doing a lot of things lately that are just clumsy.  Stupid.  Careless. A wanton disregard of the rules (bet you never thought you would hear that phrase outside a Jane Austin novel).

He knows he is monkeying around and seeing how far he can push it.

Getting out the car today, he was trying to keep Georgia getting in to the boot of the car to get her school bag.  When she got upset, and he realised I was standing there, then he feigned a huge effort to placate her and help her with her bag.

Again being a monkey, and just arsing around, and in so doing crushed half a loaf of fresh bread —- I have little regard for the bread. I have little regard for the record.

I am annoyed that he is starting to push the boundaries.  He is really just seeing how far he can go each day.

And because he is so quick to apologise and say he is sorry …. then you go “okay my boy, it is okay” and 10 minutes later he is up to the same shit.

I know I should be more “ah, kids will be kids” but seriously! He broke my record, and then hid it from me.

Fitting punishment- I am going to find another one, and make him pay for it.

As he does not earn a salary like other small kids in a third  world country, he is going to be on dog shit duty for the next three weeks!  No dog shit picking up, no television on the weekends.

I realise I will have my mother’s day gifts retracted quite soon, and my “best mom” sign quietly stolen in the night.  Shit happens, and then you send your son to pick it up.

No one read.  No one posted comments about books they had read. Ever.

50 Shades was released.  Every hausfrau known to man, every woman with a pulse was taking photographs of herself reading 50 Shades, or posting updates on Facebook about her reading 50 shades of grey.

I can stumble through shit books as much as the next person.

I made it through about 623 pages of Shantaram before I decided that if he was going to climb a mountain with some unknown  dudes. I decided I was starting to side with the mountain lion.  It is not a spoiler alert.  There was no mountain lion.  I seriously would re-read a rewrite that included a mountain lion who ate Lindsay Ford - there is a good chance I would give it another go.  Shantaram is the biggest waste of my time, if you exclude the time that I have spent trying to synch my new ipad (still not synched — damn you apple gods, damn you)

50 Shades of Grey is probably only good if you need about 3 – 8 minutes of light fiction so you can mas.turb.ate (yes I said it) but other than that, the book is trite shit, and just bad-ly bad-ly written.

But a few key quotes from that tomb of bad reading:-

Her curiosity oozes through the phone.  {sounds very similar to a call center operator asking me if I am having a nice day — the key is that it is going to get less nice because you just called}

Feel it baby.  {I do think in sex it helps to remind your partner that they should actually feel something …. other than say rigor mortis}

He’s my very own Christian Grey popsicle.  {I am guessing sorbet was no longer on the menu!}

Mentally girding my loins, I head into the hotel.  {I have been in several hotels, I do not think I have ever girded my loins —  but maybe I have been in the wrong hotels.}

Suppose he returns with a cane, or some weird kinky implement? {A cane OR a weird kink implement??  I really am not sure what I would think if  ***** arrived with a cane …. limp much?  Seriously, what are you meant to say?}

Anastasia when cuffed to the bed posts: ‘Holy cow, I cannot move my arms.  {Anastasia – who has for the record just spoilt my favourite name — yes, that is pretty much what happens when you are handcuffed to anything – if you can move, then pick up the box and re-read the instruction because your handcuffs are no longer working.}

50 Shades 0f Grey is really a kak read.

I am suggesting that there are thousands of women (and several very happy partners/husbands) who really enjoyed the book and no doubt Book Club pass it along must have soared.  I am not judging you for reading (or benefiting) from the book. The book is crap, you are not necessarily crap.

The only reason I am mentioned 50 Shades of Grey, is because I have become a fan of 50 Sheds of Grey.

Now that I like!

Terrific!