I panicked feeling unprepared for parenthood at 38 weeks and took a tree identification course to help me be the kind of parent I wanted to be. What a plonker!

[nevergoogledragonbutter]

DH and I were remembering the other day that we were so worried that we weren't ready to become parents and we didn't know enough to pass on to our unborn child.

I promptly booked us onto a tree identification walk in a local ancient woodland and spent the day filling our heads with information we could teach our child.

I was so pregnant I didn't fit through the kissing gate and they had to open up the big farm gate for my waddling self.

He'll be 5 this week and has still never asked us about particular types of trees.

His favourite tree is 'a green one'.

The other day he spent hours quizzing us on killer whales and DH said, 'Can't you ask us about trees?'

I'm really really hoping somebody else is going to come along and tell me what stupid things they felt necessary to being a prepared parent so I don't feel quite so silly.

Not quite the same, but I insisted on going to work to lead a tree course whilst 39 weeks pregnant to prove that being a mother would not change my commitment to my job . DD had bloody better like trees!

I became obsessed with the gaps in the grouting in our kitchen and at 4o weeks pg was desperately (and extremely badly) trying to re-grout/repair them. I remember saying to baffled DP "I don't mind about anything else but we cannot have a baby with the grouting not done!!!"

However, although I have pretty good general knowledge and am good at answering a lot of the quastions I get from DS, I feel I'm pretty crap at identifying trees - I can only do about 3. I'm pg again, that course sounds like a good idea...

I am particularly quick to identify an Ash.

I have bought mine all the Famous 5 books, some of the Secret 7, Winnie the Pooh and Thomas sets, Roald Dahl, Beatrix Potter (from great nanny) and the kids love them.

The day he finally asks me about trees is going to be a fine day indeed.

Oh I practiced putting nappies on a doll and then practiced strapping said doll into the car seat (made dh do it as well).

Kinda related - when looking for a pushchair I thought I'd found the perfect pushchair went to the store and I couldn't collapse it - I burst into tears sobbing loudly I'd make a terrible mum cos I couldn't even work a pushchair. Dh escorted me from the shop and banned me from pushchair shopping for a month

have they got lights on? and a star on top?

I didn't buy a baby monitor because my baby would be with me all the time and it was just lazy parenting .

Of course he was born blue and i made DMum rush out to get an Angel Monitor with sensor pad straight away .

I was actually mostly 'normal' and 'level headed' in my first pregnancy... however, we live in the South East and DS was due summer 06 - anyone remember the threats of water shortages and stand pipes... because I took them seriously and stockpiled over 200 litres of cheap bottled water because I couldn't possibly cope with breast-feeding a newborn with no water, and having to go to a stand pipe...

we never had the water switched off and most of the water ended up back down the drain when we moved...

lol @ tree course

I wish I'd done a tree course after DD picked 2 berries off the tree in the front garden and popped them in her mouth, and I had no idea what the tree was. I'm jealous.

I do have classic Winnie-the-Pooh books ready though

I think a tree identification course is great! I am always ashamed of myslef walking around that I don't have the botanical knowledge that my parents and grandparents have. Bet you anything you do use it in the future!

i love the mix of reactions here.
some think it's pretty cool others and dying laughing at my stupidity.

are not and.
should have taken a grammar course instead.

I took golf lessons

I thought "My last few months of freedom to learn something new!"

So I panicked and chose golf

golf

golf

genius

I love your tree course. I was mainly too busy making curtains in late pregnancy to care about trees. Of course, DD has barely ever slept in her room so it really wouldn't matter if it had curtains or not.

It's the leap from "don't know enough" to "tree identification" which beamuses me.

Just he usual here, I think - insisting on every aspect of LOs room being perfect - DH later asked why, given that he didn't sleep in it for 6 months (he wasn't stupid enough to ask why at the time).

Before #2 I half-obliterated the peach coloured paint in the downstairs loo. It remains half-obliterated 3 years later

They don't do 'Everything you ever needed to know about Fairies' courses do they? No they bloody don't.

So I appologise if you where in H&M on saturday and a deranged woman hissed loudy at her DS while simultaniously pulling her hair out "do I look like a bloody fairy to you? I don't KNOW how they manage to fly and hold the bloody pound coin at the same time, I don't know how small they are, and I DON@
'T know the words of the spell they use, I am not a fairy,OK?"

I was at the end of my tether

I would really appreciate an evening class in dinosaurs and space exploration now.

OMDB the answer to all fairy-related questions is for them to write a letter and ask.

Then you make someone else (DH?) deal with the correspondance - which at least will not have to be done in the middle of H&M.

..or google it (DS's answer to everything) but you would have to be pretty confident of your parental controls to allow that one.

Oh God, that's brilliant!

I looked up Long Division because I knew I couldn't fathom it when I was a child so what help could I be to my unborn?! That said, I figured with calculus, he/she were on their own!