Children are quintessentially stupid, there is no denying that. No matter how cute, cuddly or adorable they or their antics might be, it would exasperate a normal adult to the point of madness when they get down to being themselves, which is most of the time anyway. And God help the poor mortal who decides to pacify the toddler who decides to bawl his way to seek attention, there are scores of serious contenders for this position, the guy is a goner.

As a kid (a word here, none of the incidents below are quoted from memory, looks like I was so damn stupid I dont remember a thing about myself till I was a good 3 years anyway) I was no exception, if anything I was a shining example of this lunacy. In short I and my sister (she beat me, I am told I was relatively less of a pain in the a** :D ) drove my parents crazy. Here are some incidents from my childhood and those of all the brats in my family that my mum, aunt, dadi all recall in great detail.

I had the typical habit of waking the household at 2 in the night with loud screams and when my tired, sleepy mom woke up, I demand Cerelac, wait patiently till it is made and eat it. Repeated attempts by my mom to shake off the habit by making me eat late proved futile, it was 2 or 3 always, halfway through everyone's sleep.

My kid sister refused to have a bath and ran around the house, making fun of my mom. Mom had put on a lot of weight after the brat was born and if she stopped in the middle of the chase to catch her breath, my sister had the cheek to say, "Why fatty, you can't catch me, can you?".

That's not all, she hated school fanatically, this one, even I can vouch for. One fine day, at the pretext of using the loo, she ran away from the school to my aunt's house a block away. Next thing, Class teacher, the school guard, me (summoned from my class in the middle of my mid term exam), the auto wallah who had seen her run away were running in the direction of my aunts house with him in the lead to catch her.

Whenever my mom yelled at her, she had the irritating habit of putting some cotton/paper in her nostrils and lying on the ground saying she was dead. My mom had a hard time catching her to take it out. She had apparently picked the act while watching television when my mom wasn't around.

My brother woke my uncle up at midnight, every single night to play cricket in the back yard because he couldn't fall asleep and if after some particularly tiring day, my uncle had the nerve to refuse, every house in the neighborhood would know, my brother's wailing would make sure of that.

My nephew once had the cheek to tell my aunt that he would get a "spare ajji" if she left him and went because he was jumping on her tummy non stop.
Another time he was watching television and my sister came up from behind and tickled him, thinking it would amuse the kid and he turned and told her, "Behave yourself silly girl!". It was the day my sister decided to return to India from London where my nephew had lived for the first 4 years of his life.

Last one, this I have a vague recollection of, though I am still amazed I actually did it. I was in my kinder garden when one day, auto mama (as we called the guy who helped me commute to school) didnt come to pick me on time. Instead of waiting, I thought it might be fun if I surprised every one by going home by bus. So I climbed the first bus that stopped in front of the school gate and sat in the last row. The bus started to move and for a long time when I dint see anything familiar about the route I began to get scared. The conductor didnt come to my seat for a long time and when he finally came and asked where I wanted to go, I was really scared and started to cry. The poor guy was really scared, stopped the bus, got me a lot of candies and some cold drink (which were all very good) and after seeing my badge (pinned near my chest with a clean handkerchief that I kept sniffing into) got hold of my phone number and called home to my parents, now sick with worry as auto mama did come 5 minutes and later and had looked for me everywhere and gone home to report my loss. The conductor assured my parents that he would bring me to the bus stop near my house as that was where the bus depot was located anyway and even our bus would be there in no time. So after a good two hours on the bus, my longest journey ended, with my parents anxiously picking me from the stop> I will never forget the kind conductor who gave me those candies and my first taste of Coke, which I was otherwise not permitted to drink at home. :)