babyIt was the season finale of Pregnant in Heels last night, the end of weeks of crazy rich would-be parents cavorting onscreen (complete with a montage of dance routines with Rosie Pope's fabulous crazy queen assistant LT). What better time to look back and figure out the number one thing the maternity concierge has taught us about prepping for parenthood? It's simple really.

A practice baby. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Rosie Pope's borrowed kids and brought them in to see her clients before. But when she found not one but THREE kids for her stunts in the finale, I finally cottoned on to her genius. You can use these kids for anything y'all!

Convincing lazy lay-about daddies to buck up.

Matt was an actor leading a charmed life. Married to lawyer Lucy, he was used to doing WHATEVER he wanted. But with a baby on the way and plans for him to be the stay-at-home dad, he had to suddenly ... gasp ... fit baby into his gym hopping, pool lounging, dinner party planning schedule.

But put a borrowed baby in his hands, and this guy is a champ. He does laundry. He gets sweaty nervous. Matt tells Rosie he doesn't care that there's no biology, he'd throw himself into a fire to protect this kid.

There it is folks, from GTL to Dad of the Year with one practice kid.

Running Nanny Olympics.

Listen, babysitters sound good on paper. But who really knows if they hired one of those resume writers or if they're the real thing? You can! Just grab some spare toddlers, send them into the park with your two favorite candidates, sit back, and start tallying up the points Olympic judge style!

Nanny candidate hugs screaming toddler instead of lashing out at him -- 2 points. Nanny candidate feeds tot cookies instead of nice healthy fruit -- deduct 1 point. Nanny candidate remembers to slather the little bugger in sunscreen -- ding, ding, ding, we have our winner!

I jest, but when I was pregnant, I remember people pushing babies on us like crazy. With a cousin who is less than a year older than our daughter, my husband and I were prime candidates for "here, hold Alex" during family gatherings. I confess we passed on trying our hand at diapering him (I had a younger brother, I already knew how to diaper), but seeing him in my husband's arms alone was something that gave me a little boost of confidence that we'd made the right choice.

How about you? Have you tried out a practice baby for your parenting prep?


Image via paparutzi/Flickr