I recently had my last day as a nanny for a family.  I knew this day was coming as the mother is a school teacher and won’t need care during the summer, but I didn’t think it would be so sad!  The boys were 1 and 3, and there was also an older boy (age 12) that I didn’t watch but got to know a bit.

I think the hardest part was leaving the 1 year old.  I started watching them when he was 10 months and saw him start to take his first steps.  I made his first birthday cake.  I sang him to sleep when he was sick.  I gritted my teeth while his were (painfully) coming in.  I saw him go from a crawling infant to a walking, almost talking toddler.  It’s bittersweet.  We both impacted each others lives so much, but he won’t even remember me.

I can’t spend time being sad about it.  I need to be grateful and happy that I worked for such a great family and received valuable experience as well as lifetime friends.

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.

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

To discover how the nights will feel:

1. Walk 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.
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.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
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.

Look cheerful.

Lesson 4

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.

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

1. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a jar 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 aluminum 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.
4. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 7

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 cassette player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

There. Perfect.

Lesson 8

1. Get ready to go out.
2. Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour.
3. Go out the front door.
4. Come in again.  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 9

Repeat everything at least, if not more than, five times.

Lesson 10

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 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 11

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 12

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon.  Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.

Lesson 13

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

Lesson 14

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 15

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

(Author Unknown, but they must have had kids.)

Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you’ll need when you become a parent.