Get well soon, Ryan!!

Ryan, who I posted pictures of in the last couple of days, is in the hospital tonight with the respiratory flu (Influenza A, for anyone who knows the difference...if you know, please fill me in!). He's been running a high fever and is really dehydrated. They started an IV after several attempts and they'll keep him there overnight. His mommy Caryn and daddy Josh will stay with him. I'll keep you posted on him. Get well soon little Ryan!

My friend Christy sent me this next thing, and I thought some of you might get a kick out of it. Pay special attention to #9--I sincerely laughed until I cried!!

True preparation for parenthood at any age....

• Lesson 1: Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time. Watch all your favorite TV shows one last time.
• Lesson 2: Before you finally have children, find a couple who already are parents. 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 sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that 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 3 AM. 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. Walk around, asking, "What is that smell? Do you smell that?" 3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed. 4. Then rub them on the clean walls. 5. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?
• Lesson 5: Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. 1. Buy a live octopus and a small bag made 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 pot 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 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. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.
• Lesson 7: Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. And don't think 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 tape or CD 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: Get ready to go out. 1. Wait outside the bathroom for a half an hour. 2. Go out the front door. 3. Come in again. 4. Go out 5. come back in 6. go back out again.7. Walk down the front walk. 8. Walk back up it. 9. Walk back down it again. 10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes, stopping, inspecting minutely, and asking at least 6 questions about each cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way. 11. Retrace your steps. 12. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand, until the neighbors come out and stare at you. 13. 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: Go back to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a preschool child (a full grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. 1. buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. 2. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. 3. Lift goat into cart; out of cart; into cart. Beg goat to stay in cart. Bribe goat with cheerios. Until you can accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
• Lesson 10: 1. Make a small hole in the side of a melon and hollow it out. 2. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. 3. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. 4. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. 5. Tip half of the remainder into your lap. The other half just throw up into the air. You are now ready to feed a 9-16 month old baby.
• Lesson 11: Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, Barney, and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for five years.
• Lesson 12: Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying "mommy" repeatedly (important: no more than a four second delay between each "mommy"). An occasional crescendo to the volume of a supersonic jet is required. Play this recording in your car everywhere you go for the next five years.
• Lesson 13: Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day in which you have an important meeting. 1. Take a cup of cream, put in 1 cup of lemon juice, and stir. 2. Dump half of the mixture on your shirt, and saturate a towel with the other half. 3. Attempt to wipe off your shirt with the towel. 4. Do NOT change. You have no time. 5. Go directly to work.
• Lesson 14: Go for a drive! But first...1. Find one large tomcat and six pitbulls. 2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car. 3. Put the pitbulls in the front seat of your car. 4. While holding something fragile, strap the cat into the child seat. 5. Run some errands, removing and replacing the cat at each stop. You are now ready to run errands with a toddler.