I got this from a friend of mine in the UK. A couple of the references in it are uniquely British, but it translates well into *any* language. If only I had known ...

Before Having Kids: Fifteen Quick Training Sessions

Session 1:
Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up a newspaper. Read it for the last time.

Session 2:
Before you go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and advise them how to improve:
1) Their methods of discipline.
2) Their lack of patience.
3) Their appallingly low tolerance levels.
4) Their practice of allowing their children to run wild.
5) Their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour.
Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Session 3:
To discover how the nights will feel . . .
1) Walk around the living room from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm carrying a wet bag of old lentil soup weighing approximately 4-6 kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2) At 10:00 pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3) Get up at 12:00 pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4) Set the alarm for 3:00 am.
5) As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2:00 am and make a cup of tea.
6) Go to bed at 2:45 am.
7) Sing songs in the dark until 4:00 am.
8) Get up. Make breakfast.
Keep this up for five years. Look cheerful.

Session 4:
Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems.
1) Buy a live 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.

Session 5:
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon. 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 coin. Insert it in the cassette player.
3) Take a family size package of chocolate biscuits, mash them into the back seat.
4) Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. . . perfect!

Session 6:
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/driveway.
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.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Session 7:
Repeat everything at least, if not more than, 100 times.

Session 8:
Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest 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 goat(s) out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Session 9:
1) Hollow out a melon.
2) Make a small hole in the side.
3) Suspend the melon 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 of the remainder into your lap. The other half just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a 12 month old baby.

Session 10:
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.

Session 11:
Move to the tropics. Find or make a compost heap. Dig down about halfway in and stick your nose in it. Do this 3-5 times a day for two years. Get used to it.

Session 12:
Make a recording of Janet Street-Porter shouting "Mummy" repeatedly. (Important: No more than a four second delay between each "Mummy" - 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.

Session 13:
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem/shirt sleeve/elbow while playing the "Mummy" tape made from Lesson 12 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Session 14:
Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day in which you have an important meeting. Now:
1) Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.
2) Stir.
3) Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture.
4) Attempt to clean your shirt with the saturated towel.
5) Do NOT change. You have no time.
6) Go directly to work.

Session 15:
Go for a drive, but first.
1) Find one large tomcat and six pit bulls.
2) Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.
3) Put the pit bulls 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.

Congratulations! You are now ready to have kids!