Dave Barry: Babies And Other Hazards Of Sex: How to make a tiny person in only 9 months, vwith tools you probably have around the home

WEEK 5: The fetus is only 6.7 liters in circumference yet has already developed the ability to shriek in airplanes.

WEEK 10: The fetus is almost 12 millipedes in longitude and has a prehensile tail and wings. It will probably lose these things before it is born.

WEEK 20: The fetus measures 4 on the Richter scale and is perusing mail-order catalogs from the Fisher-Price company.

WEEKS 30-40: The fetus is on vacation.

WEEK 50: The fetus can run the 100meter dash in 10.23 seconds and has developed an interest in pottery.

You must remember that when you are pregnant, you are eating for two. But you must also remember that the other one of you is about the size of a golf ball, so let’s not go overboard with it. I mean, a lot of pregnant women eat as though the other person they’re eating for is Orson Welles. The instant they find out they’re pregnant they rush right out and buy a case of Mallomars, and within days they’ve expanded to the size of barrage balloons.

Keep in mind that it’s a baby you’re eating for. If you’re going to eat for it, don’t eat like an adult; eat like a baby. This doesn’t mean you can’t have Mallomars; it means you must hold them in your hands until the chocolate melts and then rub it into your hair and the sofa. If you eat at a restaurant, feel free to order that steak you crave, but have the waiter cut it into 650,000 tiny pieces and then refuse to touch them, preferring instead to chew and swallow the cocktail napkin and then throw up a little bit on your dress.

Q. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY BODY DURING PREGNANCY BESIDES THAT I WILL BECOME HUGE AND TIRED AND THROW UP A LOT AND BE CONSTIPATED AND DEVELOP HEMORRHOIDS AND HAVE TO URINATE ALL THE TIME AND HAVE LEG CRAMPS AND VARICOSE VEINS?

A. Many women also have lower back pain.

Q. IS IT SAFE TO GAMBLE AND CURSE DURING PREGNANCY?

A. Yes, but during the first trimester you should avoid gaudy jewelry.

Q. HOW LONG WILL I BE PREGNANT?

A. Most of us learn in health class that the human gestation period is nine months. Like most things we learn in health class, this is a lie. The only people who still believe it are doctors, who make a big fuss out of giving you a “due date” nine months from when they think you were fertilized, as if it takes some kind of elaborate medical training to operate a calendar. I have done exhaustive research on this question in the form of talking to my friends and listening in on other people’s conversations in the supermarket checkout line, and I have concluded that no woman has ever given birth on her “due date.” About a quarter of all pregnant women give birth “prematurely,” which means during the doctor’s vacation that immediately precedes the “due date.” All other women—and ask them if you don’t believe me—remain pregnant for at least 14 months, and sometimes much longer if the weather has been unusually hot.

Q. CAN I HAVE SEX WITH MY HUSBAND WHILE I’M PREGNANT?

A. No.

Q. WELL, CAN I HAVE SEX WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S HUSBAND?

A. I don’t see why not.

The key here is to be sensitive. You must not let your wife think you find her unattractive just because she’s getting tremendously fat. Go out of your way to reassure her on this point. From time to time, say to her: “I certainly don’t find you unattractive just because you’re getting tremendously fat.” If you go to a party where every woman in the room is slinky and lithe except your wife, who is wearing a maternity outfit that makes her look like a convertible sofa, be sure to remark from time to time, in a strident voice, that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Your wife is bound to remember this sensitive gesture.

During her pregnancy your wife will have many emotional moods caused by the fact that there are gallons of hormones racing around inside her. The two of you will be sitting in your living room, watching the evening news on television, when all of a sudden she’ll run into the bedroom in tears because of a report about a monsoon wiping out a distant Asian village. Follow her. Comfort her. Tell her: “They’re just distant Asians, for God’s sake.”

Can you teach your child while it’s still in the uterus? The answer is yes, at least according to this couple I saw on the “Phil Donahue Show” once, and I don’t see why they would lie about it. Their kids all came out of the womb with a deep appreciation for classical music. Frankly, I don’t understand why parents think this is so important, because as I recall my youth, children who appreciated classical music were infinitely more likely to get beat up on the playground. The smart move, if you want your child to have the respect and admiration of its peers, would be to teach it how to spit convincingly or lead cheers.

But never mind what you teach the child while it’s in the uterus; the important thing is that you can teach it, and you’d better, if you want it to get into Harvard Medical School. Of course, the teaching method has to be very simple. I mean, you can’t go in there with slide projectors or anything. Where would you plug them in? So you’ll pretty much have to content yourself with yelling at the stomach. This is the man’s job, because let’s face it, the woman would look pretty stupid yelling at her own stomach.

So whenever the two of you have a spare moment together, such as when you’re waiting to cash a check at the bank, the man should lean over and yell, in the general direction of the woman’s uterus, something like “THE CAPITAL OF NORTH DAKOTA IS PIERRE.” Or maybe that’s South Dakota. I can never keep the state capitals straight, because when I was in the uterus, back in 1946, Phil Donahue hadn’t been invented yet.

Probably the single most grueling ordeal a woman must endure during pregnancy is the baby shower. What happens is you have to sit in the middle of a group of women and repeatedly open gifts, and every time you open one, you have to adopt a delighted expression, then hold the gift up—even if it is disposable diapers—and exclaim, “Oh! How cute!” In some cases this goes on for hours, and all you are permitted to eat is tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

At one time, most women relied on drugs to get through their showers. But more and more, women are practicing “natural” shower techniques, which allow them, through careful preparation, to have perfectly safe showers without the use of artificial substances.

The key is teamwork between you and your husband. Well in advance of the expected shower date, the two of you should practice regularly at home. Sit on the sofa while your husband hands you various objects, and practice holding them up and exclaiming, “Oh! How cute!” You must practice this every night until no matter what he hands you—an ashtray, a snow tire, a reptile, etc.—you can still appear to be genuinely delighted.

Babies are equipped at birth with a number of instinctive reflexes and behavior patterns that cause them to spend their first several years trying to kill themselves. If your home contains a sharp, toxic object, your baby will locate it; if your home contains no such object, your baby will try to obtain one via mail order. Therefore, you must comb through your house or apartment and eliminate all unsafe things, including: dirt, forks, old copies of Penthouse magazine, germs, spittoons, attics, stairs, stoves, water, etc.