One of these days, Casey will realize it takes more to scare me than hearing her say:

"You're going to wake up in the middle of the night because the baby is crying, and fussy..."

This is a regular occurrence. A few minutes after the first piercing shrieks of his snoring alert both myself and the neighbors to the fact that he's down for the count, I roll over slowly, settle back, and am immediately jolted upright by his cries of, "You woke me up! I was sound asleep! I'll never get back to sleep now..." He generally grumbles for anywhere from fifteen minutes to two hours.

"You'll have to childproof your house, and put everything out of the baby's reach..."

Nothing new here. There are six Hershey bars, two bags of Starbucks coffee, one package of Oreos and two boxes of Lucky Charms hidden in strategic locations in the kitchen. The baking chocolate has been under lock and key since he discovered his mother had lied to him for years and unflavored is not the only flavor the foil wrapped blocks are available in. The one time I left a can of Carpet Fresh under the sink, he used it to run the dishwasher. Other items he might hurt himself with, such as the keys to my car and those nasty little PINs for ATM machines are also stashed away safely.

"Kids go through a difficult stage where they reject any sign of affection..." The last kiss I got in front of someone other than my dog was at the altar on our wedding day. If it wasn't for the videotape, I wouldn't have proof it happened at all.

"You'll worry every time you leave the baby alone..."

The last time I left my husband alone for more than an hour, he punched a hole in the stairwell ceiling moving a file cabinet, set fire to something as yet unidentified in the bottom of the broiler pan, and as for the three strands of spaghetti stuck to the ceiling, I was too afraid to ask.

"Kids leave their toys all over your house..."

What used to be our TV room, a spacious area for reclining in Laz e Boys or sprawling on the couch, has become a storage area for outmoded exercise equipment. A Soloflex takes up all the room on one side not filled by a Fitness Flyer, and I try to pretend that the poster of an impossibly perfect man in various stages of exercise on the Soloflex blends very well with the scenic mountain print hanging crookedly beside it. With a little practice, I've managed to convince visitors that the travel case for his laptop computer and the 'street wheels' for his mountain bike, which haven't left the living room in four years, are actually modern end tables, and yes, that's really where they go.

"Your grocery bill will go through the roof..."

Mine left he roof behind years ago, and I abandoned all hopes of bringing it back down within reason the day I realized my husband would never accept the fact that the appropriate use for a Dutch Oven is not as a cereal bowl. I've forgotten what it's like to buy bread other than the all natural, ten pound loaf chocked full of nuts, natural herbs and whole wheat, for a whopping seven bucks a loaf. There's nothing like it for toast, he insists, which he prepares six slices at a time. His favorite cereal (one box equals one and one half Dutch ovens) is $6 per box, and he'd never consider 'inflicting' it's store brand counterpart on his system, never mind the only real difference between the two is the color of the clown's hair on the box.

"Just wait until you try to get a kid to give up a favorite stuffed animal/security blanket/toy..."

We're in the early phases of remote control training now. While he still sleeps with it clutched in both hands, he no longer feels compelled to bring it to the dinner table.

"Kids always want the most expensive toys...."

When our $52 cordless phone broke, I threw caution (and sanity) to the wind, and sent my husband out to replace it. He's still trying to convince me that the $300, hands-free, multi-channel gizmo he brought home, a mechanism which beeps erratically when left off its charger for more than a half hour and which is so small I always wind up feeling like I'm speaking into a pencil eraser, was 'the only choice that made any sense'.

"It's going to be your job to break them of sucking their thumb, and other annoying habits..."

I'm not convinced this is true. My mother-in-law was never successful in teaching him the proper use of silverware, so I can't feel too badly that I haven't been able to do it, either.

"As kids age, you won't like their friends..."

I liked Skip, my husband's little friend from next door. Skip was a young, upwardly mobile professional who always called his wife by one or another pet name that was endearing without being annoying, never came over before nine a.m. on Sunday morning to 'see what we were doing', and the few times he had dinner with us, demonstrated a basic understanding of the principles behind a knife and a fork. Unfortunately, Skip was transferred, and replaced by Matthew. I've never liked Matthew. He's single, changes girlfriends as often as I move the furniture (Hint: It's never in one spot long enough to produce an indentation in the carpet that can't be fluffed with the vacuum in two swipes), has dinner with us whenever he smells food, and seems to feel the digestion process is helped by chewing with mouth open, hastening the food's journey down the alimentary canal by a few stiff belts (16 oz each) of Old Milwaukee. When Matthew shows up on the doorstep every Sunday morning at six-fifteen, to 'see if we're up yet', I'm often tempted to tell him we've moved.

"They'll rebel by wearing strange clothing..."

I ounce bought my husband a pair of purple paisley, flared leg rayon lounging pants as a joke. They immediately became a favorite, and if I hadn't stuffed them down the lint trap of the dryer, he would have worn them to the office Christmas party. We reached a compromise now, wherein he wears whatever he likes, often topped by a baseball cap that proclaims, in sprawling script, "I only dress this way to bother you..."

"They'll Never Do their household chores..."

The last time my husband remembered to take the garbage out, he was single. He thinks a vacuum is a controlled space in a laboratory, and I don't have the heart to tell him little green men don't really replace the empty toilet paper roll with a new one every time it runs out.

"Just wait until they're sick!"

I once stayed awake for three days, brewed fourteen quarts of chicken soup, pulled a muscle in my forearm squeezing Sunkist oranges, logged one hundred and seventy-five miles on my car running to various pharmacies for medications, consulted with four different doctors, and lost six pounds running up and down the stairs from our bedroom to the kitchen. If he never gets another case of the sniffles, it will be too soon.

Of course, Casey saves the best for last, folding her arms across her chest and narrowing her eyes before firing off the big guns:

"Until you have kids, you'll never know what it's like to be needed..."

I didn't have time to answer that. I had to stop by the grocery store, pick up my husband's sports coat from the dry cleaner, balance the checkbook, take the dogs to the vet, find something to wear to work that didn't need ironed, and have it all done in time to meet my in-laws for dinner.

But I'm sure I'll think of something to tell Casey, later. Maybe after my husband had gone to bed and I have a few minutes for myself.

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