Stay-at-Home-Dad Training Guide

So you got it into your head that staying home and raising your children might be a good idea. You have visions of working on your golf game while your little one sleeps peacefully in your combination baby stroller/golf bag. You'll be able to stay in your pajamas and play on your XBox all day. You'll teach your little one(s) to appreciate the fine points of the cover 2 defense and the importance of middle relief. But in order to inject a bit of reality into your expectations and to prepare you for what is to come, I've created this short training guide. While nothing can fully prepare you for what lies ahead, this will give you some idea.

1. Look around at your stuff and find the one thing you'd least like broken. Break it.

2. Trap a squirrel in your back yard. Try to put a onesie on it.

3. Get two noisemakers - one that screeches at an impossibly loud pitch and one that says the same word over and over and over. Place them in your back seat while you drive. Now, try to listen to the song on the radio.

4. Paint a pasty white spot on the shoulders of all your shirts, sweaters, and coats.

5. Cook a delicious meal. Eat it really fast without tasting anything.

6. Get a dog that ignores all of your commands and does its own thing. Teach it to read.

7. Tie your arm behind your back. Make two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, one with creamy peanut butter and one with chunky. One has strawberry jelly and one has grape. Cut the crusts off one. Cut one into triangles and one into squares. Get the right combination and do it within 30 seconds. Now drop one on the floor and quickly make it again.

8. Rig a contraption with a gas can balanced precariously over an open flame. Go to the bathroom and hope nothing bad happens.

9. Scatter toys all over the ground. Carry groceries in one hand and a baby carrier in the other and navigate through the toy mine field. When you do trip, don't drop the baby carrier and try not to swear.

10. Don't shower until you wake up one morning and can't stand your own filth. Get used to that feeling.

Good luck!

This training guide may seem quite cynical, but let me assure you there's nothing I can do to prepare you for the good parts - and there will be plenty of them.