Here are some helpful guidelines to being a baby:
1. Sleep only during the day. The night is for screaming. If you feel the need to wake up during the day, make sure you do it the second your parents creep quietly into their bedroom and start taking each other’s clothes off. At that moment you must wail most fearfully, and you must continue until they have lost the urge to touch each other. Then you may go back to sleep.
2. Eat as much as you can, or preferably much more than you can, so that you can regurgitate it as soon as someone picks you up. Try to resist the urge to vomit when you are on a cleanable surface such as a changing table: hold it in until someone is wearing a nice dress and on her way out the door to a meeting. The ideal moment for vomiting is when your dad picks you up wearing his best suit, especially if he is late for an appointment.
3. Do not defecate at all until you have been given a bath and a clean diaper. If possible, wait until you are out of the house or in a crowded place such as an airplane. On airplanes, always defecate massively.
4. Wait until you are in the queue for the check-out at the grocery store before you begin screaming your loudest. This will attract the maximum disapproval for your parents.
5. When your parents are exhausted and about to lose their patience with you, give them that shy gummy smile and the whooping sound that they think might be a proto-laugh, and they will immediately forgive you anything.
Glad to know the little bugger is putting you through your paces. Keep your chin up. Think long-term: the revenge you can exact upon teenagers (or as new grandparents) is exquisitely delicious. Just ask your own parents.