A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
responsibility at the other.
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A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
		-- Carl Sandburg
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A child of five could understand this!  Fetch me a child of five.
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A kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo, eventually.
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A little kid went up to Santa and asked him, "Santa, you know when I'm bad
right?"  And Santa says, "Yes, I do."  The little kid then asks, "And you
know when I'm sleeping?" To which Santa replies, "Every minute." So the
little kid then says, "Well, if you know when I'm bad and when I'm good,
then how come you don't know what I want for Christmas?"
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	A young married couple had their first child.  Their original pride
and joy slowly turned to concern however, for after a couple of years the
child had never uttered any form of speech.  They hired the best speech
therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, all to no avail.  The child simply refused
to speak.  One morning when the child was five, while the husband was reading
the paper, and the wife was feeding the dog, the little kid looks up from
his bowl and said, "My cereal's cold."
	The couple is stunned.  The man, in tears, confronts his son.  "Son,
after all these years, why have you waited so long to say something?".
	Shrugs the kid, "Everything's been okay 'til now".
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About the only thing we have left that actually discriminates in favor of
the plain people is the stork.
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Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped
teething.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
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And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower.  "This," cried the Mayor,
"is your town's darkest hour!  The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
to come to the aid of their country!" he said.  "We've GOT to make noises in
greater amounts!  So, open your mouth, lad!  For every voice counts!"  Thus he
spoke as he climbed.  When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and
he shouted out, "YOPP!"
	And that Yopp...  That one last small, extra Yopp put it over!
Finally, at last!  From the speck on that clover their voices were heard!
They rang out clear and clean.  And they elephant smiled.  "Do you see what
I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small.  And their
whole world was saved by the smallest of All!"
	"How true!  Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo.  "And, from now
on, you know what I'm planning to do?  From now on, I'm going to protect
them with you!"  And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO!  From
the sun in the summer.  From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect
them.  No matter how small-ish!"
		-- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"
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Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never
tried taking candy from a baby.
		-- Robin Hood
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Article the Third:
	Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should
	enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change.  Public announcements and
	guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary.
Article the Fourth:
	The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee"
	and not the "feeder".  Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's
	face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war.
Article the Fifth:
	Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church,
	a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the
	lights are out.  They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have
	to last a lifetime and must be conserved.
		-- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights"
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Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
		-- Henrik Tikkanen
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Billy:	Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from
	generation to generation?
Mom:	Yes?
Billy:	Well, this generation dropped it.
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Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests,
since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind.
		-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
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Catproof is an oxymoron, childproof nearly so.
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Children are like cats, they can tell when you don't like them.  That's
when they come over and violate your body space.
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Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every
effort to teach them good manners.
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Children are unpredictable.  You never know what inconsistency they're
going to catch you in next.
		-- Franklin P. Jones
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Children begin by loving their parents.  After a time they judge them.
Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
		-- Oscar Wilde
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Children seldom misquote you.  In fact, they usually repeat word for
word what you shouldn't have said.
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Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
		-- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"
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Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling
the walk before it stops snowing.
		-- Phyllis Diller
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There is no need to do any housework at all.  After the first four years
the dirt doesn't get any worse.
		-- Quentin Crisp
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FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #5

	"And, and, and, and, but, but, but, but!"
		-- Mrs. Janice Markowsky, April 8, 1965
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FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #6

	"Johnny, if you fall and break your leg, don't come running to me!"
		-- Mrs. Emily Barstow, June 16, 1954
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			-- Gifts for Children --

This is easy.  You never have to figure out what to get for children,
because they will tell you exactly what they want.  They spend months and
months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning
cartoon-show advertisements.  Make sure you get your children exactly what
they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices.  If your child thinks
he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd
better get it.  You may be worried that it might help to encourage your
child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial
tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not
get the right gift.
		-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
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Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters
needs pounding.
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Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.
		-- Martin Mull
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How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a sister's "See?"
		-- Linus Van Pelt
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I called my parents the other night, but I forgot about the time difference.
They're still living in the fifties.
		-- Strange de Jim
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	I did some heavy research so as to be prepared for "Mommy, why is
the sky blue?"
	HE asked me about black holes in space.
	(There's a hole *where*?)

	I boned up to be ready for, "Why is the grass green?"
	HE wanted to discuss nature's food chains.
	(Well, let's see, there's ShopRite, Pathmark...)

	I talked about Choo-Choo trains.
	HE talked internal combustion engines.
	(The INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE said, "I think I can, I think I can.")

	I was delighted with the video game craze, thinking we could compete
as equals.
	HE described the complexities of the microchips required to create
the graphics.

	Then puberty struck.  Ah, adolescence.
	HE said, "Mom, I just don't understand women."
	(Gotcha!)
		-- Betty LiBrizzi, "The Care and Feeding of a Gifted Child"
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I hate babies.  They're so human.
		-- H. H. Munro
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I opened the drawer of my little desk and a single letter fell out, a
letter from my mother, written in pencil, one of her last, with unfinished
words and an implicit sense of her departure.  It's so curious: one can
resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief.  But
then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window... or one notices
that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed... or
a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.
		-- Letters From Colette
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I tell ya, I was an ugly kid.  I was so ugly that my dad kept the kid's
picture that came with the wallet he bought.
		-- Rodney Dangerfield
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I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own."  One of them said,
"So will you."
		-- Rodney Dangerfield
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I used to think I was a child; now I think I am an adult -- not because
I no longer do childish things, but because those I call adults are no
more mature than I am.
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I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know
anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is
a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up.
		-- Will Rogers
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If parents would only realize how they bore their children.
		-- G. B. Shaw
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If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.
		-- Nora Ephron, "Heartburn"
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If the very old will remember, the very young will listen.
		-- Chief Dan George
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It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children.
		-- Kingsley Amis
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It is so soon that I am done for, I wonder what I was begun for.
		-- Epitaph, Cheltenham Churchyard
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It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father.
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It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
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Kids always brighten up a house; mostly by leaving the lights on.
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Kids have *never* taken guidance from their parents.  If you could
travel back in time and observe the original primate family in the
original tree, you would see the primate parents yelling at the primate
teenager for sitting around and sulking all day instead of hunting for
grubs and berries like dad primate.  Then you'd see the primate
teenager stomp up to his branch and slam the leaves.
		-- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"
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Lies!  All lies!  You're all lying against my boys!
		-- Ma Barker
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Life does not begin at the moment of conception or the moment of birth.
It begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies.
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Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% mortality.
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Life is like a diaper -- short and loaded.
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Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children.
Life is the other way around.
		-- David Lodge, "The British Museum is Falling Down"
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Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
		-- Jules Feiffer
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MEMORIES OF MY FAMILY MEETINGS still are a source of strength to me.  I
remember we'd all get into the car -- I forget what kind it was -- and
drive and drive.

I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some bees there. The
smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we
played.  I remember a bigger, older guy whom we called "Dad."  We'd eat
some stuff or not and then I think we went home.

I guess some things never leave you.
		-- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988.
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My mother once said to me, "Elwood," (she always called me Elwood)
"Elwood, in this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant."
For years I tried smart.  I recommend pleasant.
		-- Elwood P. Dowde, "Harvey"
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My mother wants grandchildren, so I said, "Mom, go for it!"
		-- Sue Murphy
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My mother was a test tube; my father was a knife.
		-- Friday
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My parents went to Niagara Falls and all I got was this crummy life.
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