Elspode's Baby Advice to Juju:

1) Rent, never own. As soon as you take them home from the hospital, their trade in value plummets.

2) Buy the extended warranty. It will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in case something goes wrong.

3) Make sure your baby comes equipped with the optional Mute switch. Never be asked to leave a wedding or theater again!

4) It is an old wive's tale that cats steal babys' breath. They do not. They do, however, love to root through their diaper pails. This goes double for dogs.

5) It is never too early for your baby to start generating income for the family. If you aren't offered a commercial shoot or starring role in a sitcom for your baby right away, consider more mundane employment for him/her, such as being a doorstop or being an older child's plaything.

And finally...never undercook fresh or recently thawed baby. Always use a meat thermometer. Baby is done when it is tender and flakes easily with a fork, or reaches an internal temperature of at least 225 degrees.

:eek:

Just a modest proposal, right?

ThisOleMiss, what do you recommend when your 5-year-old daughter comes home from Kindergarten singing "Oops I Did It Again"???

Elspode, I always said that whoever named the flower "baby's breath" had never been near an actual baby.

BWHAHAHAHA!

      Baby advice? Ick. Look Juju, do all the baby stuff that you have to, let your wife do the rest. It's no fun. They just lay there, eat, poop and cry. Okay, these things do trigger weird emotional responses, but babies still aren't any real fun. Oh yeah, when she cries for an hour for no apparent reason, suck it up. It'll pass and the massive headache you have will fade.
      Kids are much more fun when they become Toddlers. You get to toss them around then. Which is doubly fun since in addition to the child's look of joy you get mom's look of horror. Good stuff.
      Then you have to teach them to speak, endure these endless hours of lessons. Also never hesitate to scream at those that try to teach your child to mispronounce words because they think it's 'cute.' You might want to warn your wife that will happen now, the screaming I mean. I do regret I didn't start being flat rude to people that did that right off the bat. Trust me, talking reasonably to people on the subject doesn't work. I did get rude, but by that time my daughter had been taught that sounding stupid was a good thing. Much more work for me.
      Anyway, from toddler up is good. There's nothing quite like watching a personality form. Well, till they hit the mandatory rebellion years of the teens anyway. On a related topic, any parent that says they never felt the urge to beat the hell out of their kid is lying. People just don't admit it 'cause they think it makes them bad. Nah, it's natural, you're only bad if you give in to the urge.

      By the by, the best advice so far was "be consistent." It's worth it all the way around.

I don't really have baby advice as I have never had babies. I got 3 pre-teens though. My advice for when they get older:

I like the be consistent. Also - don't talk down to them when they do something wrong - be honest with them and tell them why you are upset. (This is really easy to say I know - but harder to do. I find myself slipping all the time.)

      Oh yeah, I forgot. Put a roll of paper towels around the stick you beat the kid with. That way it'll still hurt, but won't leave marks. No DHS problems that way.