“Da’ey?”
“Yes Parker?”
“Mommy not here.”
“Nope, she’s in Seattle so that your sister can go to school.”
“You here.”
“Yep.”
“And I here.”
“Yes you sure are.”
“My banky a bit sad.”
“Your blanky is sad? Oh no, that’s too bad buddy. You tell your blanky we’re going to see mommy and your sister really soon, in just a few sleeps..”
“Be’er give it some cuddles. Make it feel be’er.”
“Good idea buddy. Good idea.”
It’s time for another Before I Had Kids flowchart!
It seems there’s always another activity, always another event – how is a modern, time-pressured parent to determine whether it’s necessary to attend? Consult this handy flowchart and wonder no more!
Click image to enlarge.
Did you enjoy this? You might also like:
Parenting Flowchart: “Am I too Sick to Parent?”
Parenting Pie Charts: Spending Habits Before and After Having Kids
Let this serve as a guide to all you future fathers out there – there are some situations in which “lightening the mood” with “super-funny” “jokes” is probably not going to do anybody any favors. The final stage of labor is definitely one of those situations.
(Or so I’ve been told.)
(Repeatedly.)
Hey baby, you’re doing great! Is there any chance we could just move things along a bit? I told my brother I’d meet him for a beer later.
Good pushing honey! Wouldn’t it be crazy if it turned out to be twins?
Wow, that looks like it hurts. I mean, just . . . wow. Ouch. Seriously, that CANNOT feel good.
Could somebody get me a stool? I’m exhausted.
I know we’ve been over this, but *how* sure are you that it’s mine?
Hey I was just talking to my Mom and apparently ENORMOUS babies run in our family! Isn’t that great?
I probably should have discussed this with you first, but I sort of told this girl at work you’d be a surrogate for her after you’re done with this one. That’s cool right?
-
Baby wipes are one of the great modern inventions.
As any parent who uses them will attest, the epic abilities of the legendary baby wipe go far beyond simply taking down unimaginable quantities of poo, however . . .
1. Crime scene cleanup
2. Shower alternative for new parents*
3. Surrender flag for army men battles
4. Air conditioning alternative**
5. Emergency pants!
6. Placebo nicotine patch
7. Effectively use to clean most brands of vomit off of most brands of smartphone screen
8. Makeshift gas mask in the event of a biological warfare attack***
9. Bedding for the Barbie Dream House couch, where Ken is sleeping (again)
-
*(What? You thought you were still going to get to shower every day after having a baby?? LOLOLOL!!).
**Scorching summer day? No air conditioning? Tuck a couple of baby wipes in your shoes for a cool, refreshing afternoon of laying out by the pool doing endless loads of hot, humid laundry and washing mountains of steaming dishes.
*** do not do this****
**** on second thought, if you needed this disclaimer, maybe you should go ahead and do it after all.
_
Why do people say this when they find out you’re going to have a baby?
First, I’m pretty sure most expectant parents are aware that sometimes babies wake up at night.
Second, how, exactly, do you suddenly extra enjoy something you’ve been doing your whole life? Bigger bed? White noise machine? A blanket made of soft, purring, albino kittens?
Third, and most importantly, say you did somehow figure out how to find sleep especially enjoyable while expecting.
Say you do find a way to really relish your rest, savour your sleep, suck the marrow from your nightly unconsciousness.
Then the baby comes and your life is COMPLETELY RUINED because now you’re so in love with sleep that your mewling little puddle of crying poo could never compete.
Yay! Sure glad I trained myself to LOVE AND APPRECIATE sleep there for a few months before my life got ruined.
Want to come over later and kick my dog and light some of my art on fire??
-
Before I had kids, I had no trouble running on very little sleep.
When I was going to university I could stay up partying all night, roll in for a full day of classes, and still manage to maintain my concentration all day, no problem.
Now that I have 2 children though, I . . . wait, what?
Where am I?
Whose baby is this?
What’s darker, maroon or burgundy?
Why am I holding mustard?
Why did they change the ending of I Am Legend?
Oooooh, cake!!
“Daddy?”
“Yes Parker?”
“What are you doing Daddy?”
“I’m trying to sleep buddy.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired.”
“Why?”
“Because Daddy was up very late last night.”
“Why?”
“Because I was playing a stupid video game.”
“Why?”
“Because it was fun.”
“Why?”
“Good design.”
“Why?”
“Good designer.”
“Why?”
“Talent, training and experience, I suppose.”
“Why?”
“Oh I don’t know, he probably flunked out of Law or Engineering or something.”
“Why?”
“Because most girls and boys discover Engineering at around the same time as they discover vodka and getting an Engineering degree is very, very difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because math is not taught very effectively in our high schools.”
“Why?”
“Chronic underfunding I suppose.”
“Why?”
“Political short-sightedness and fiscal mismanagement, mostly.”
“Why?”
“Because most people get into politics for the wrong reasons and the ones that get into it for the right reasons tend to become disillusioned with the system and either are unable to ever effect substantive change or get out of the political sphere altogether and head to the private sector to make some money and hopefully contribute to reform extra-governmentally.”
“Daddy, wanna play with my trucks?”
“Yes, Parker. Yes I do.”
_
Squid City was a strange place for Jessica to find herself on an otherwise uninteresting Tuesday evening.
The last thing Jessica remembered, she had been pretending to brush her teeth and getting on her pyjamas and then BAM!
Squid City.
Jessica looked around Squid City and couldn’t believe her eyes – there were big, black, grimy, slimy squids everywhere!
There were shrimp and jellyfish and cuttlefish and clown fish and plankton and all sorts of other types of fish that Jessica hadn’t learned about in school or animated movies by Pixar.
But don’t worry, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. The squids that Jessica first encountered were quite pleasant indeed, if a little on the quiet side.
They helped Jessica to find a comfortable place to sleep under the ocean.
They helped her to find some interesting deep sea toys to play with.
And they even introduced Jessica to some friends to keep her company during her stay on the ocean floor. Unfortunately for Jessica, her new friends didn’t speak much English and because she was only in the third grade, Jessica did not speak whale language or dolphin language very well at all.
In fact, the only dolphin word Jessica knew was ooooooorrrrrkkk, which she was pretty sure meant either “tuna” or “swim faster” or “microwave.”
Things were going quite swimmingly in Squid City for Jessica. The squid people were all preparing for the big Bilateral Symmetry Festival, stocking up on ink and plankton and shrimp and little tiny cocktail napkins.
They practiced their festival chant every evening. It went like this:
Boogoo! Bari! Calamari!
It was not a very long chant but they had to practice many times a day because squids have only teensy tiny little brains and mostly those brains think about eating fish, which makes it very difficult for them to remember any chants at all – even the ones that are only three words long.
When the festival finally came, Jessica was super, duper, zooper excited. She wore her pink shirt, pink sweater, pink tiara, pink jacket, pink pants, pink shorts, pink skirt and . . . yellow shoes.
The festival was a huge success. There was dancing, singing, laughing and eating – although Jessica didn’t eat very much. She thought it would be rude to tell the people of Squid City but she really wasn’t a big fan of plankton.
The festival lasted into the night and there was plenty of chanting.
Boogoo! Bari! Calamari!
Of course, the squids had trouble keeping the chant in their tiny little brains, even with all of the practicing they had done, so a lot of them got mixed up and said things like Ooogoo! Boogoo! and Ungo! Bungo! and Ringo! George! but Jessica helped them to remember the proper words.
Jessica was having a wonderful time deep below the sea in Squid City, but later that night she remembered her house and her parents and her annoying brother and she asked for the squids to take her home.
So they gathered Jessica up in their deep sea limousine (which was really just an old, dirty piece of fishing net) and they swam her up, up, up towards Jessica’s house.
Of course, Jessica had to remind them and their tiny little brains several times where they were going.
But they finally went the right way and floated Jessica up, up, up to where she lived with her family . . . and when she opened her eyes and looked around, that is precisely where she found herself.
Home. And just about ready for bed.
Ah, Show and Tell. It’s a time-honoured tradition that teaches children how important it is to have better stuff than other people you know.
And of course the school year starts off with the best of intentions, but as the months wear on . . .
A portrait of every one of your daughter’s classmates that you helped her paint on a large canvas, which you then had framed and donated to the class as a gift.
A hand-knit scarf your great ancestor Mildred Middlebottom made for a soldier who served served in the Franco-Prussian war and single-handedly halted a German invasion while wearing it.
A collection of seashells you gathered together last summer.
Half-finished colouring book.
The same dirty pair of mittens she’s worn to school every day since October because you forgot to send anything for show-and-tell.
A nine volt battery that used to be in a really cool toy that got broken and thrown in the garbage.
The mittens again.
A page torn out of the 2003 International Plant Nutrition Institute calendar.
Mittens.
A tic-tac that sort of looks like a white smartie.
