After carrying the baby for 9 months, the mother finally delivers the baby, and the whole family, relatives, and even the neighbours, become the happiest people on Earth. The baby is an angel, with its innocent smile, the beautiful eyes, the soft skin and chubby features. All day, people pour into the hospital room to meet the newest addition to the family, and to congratulate the parents of their 'accomplishment'. Many gifts are given and the new 'family' is happy and relieved.

Dad brings Mom and baby home where a couple of relatives are awaiting their arrival, and take the baby for the required religious rituals. They stay for a couple of days to make sure everything is all right and the proud new parents know atleast the basic in child care. The baby has been a perfect  angel, no crying no problems.

Fast forwarding to a couple of months after birth. Life of the once proud mom and dad now revolves around the baby and all they think about is when will their cute little bundle of joy grow up and be a lot lesser pain in the uhhmm... backside!!!  The constant crying, screeching, peeing, crapping, puking and diaper changing, along with mid nightly wake ups has the parents bewildered, on how can such a tiny little thing possibly cause such a mayhem? All they look forward to is the day the baby turns, say two.

And when guests arrive, the parents are astounded, no, shocked to see the quantum change in their child's behaviour, with the smiling, cooing, laughing with no sudden wetness or brownish slush on people's hands, arms or clothes!!

Fast forwarding again, to the required date, all the horrified parents can see is the mess their baby makes, with all the mobility of a drunkard. Toys everywhere, food everywhere, the baby nowhere. Now that the baby can recognize faces, he does not go to just about anyone's lap but wants to be carried by 'mama' or 'dada' only. The said people are dead tired running behind the kid and tending to its not small needs. All they long for is for their baby to quickly grow up so that he can walk properly and voice his needs verbally instead of their having to decipher the different types of wailing as of now.

A year later the baby  is three and talks, albeit slowly. Those in the mall will always bend down and try to talk to the baby in child language with the child himself responding perfectly, so much so that it isn't unusual to hear phrases like "How Cute" or "Cho Chweet".

But to their horror, mommy and daddy find out that, The advantage of being able to voice their needs has also been overshadowed by the ability to verbally voice their needs...wait a sec...actually scream their wants. They will stop at nothing till they get what they want, whether it is the chocolate flavour of the Kellogs corn flakes or the LARGE box that the expensive toy comes in!

Now that he is old enough, outfitting their bundle of joy's (??) feet with the latest "light" shoes has led to nowhere, he absolutely refuses to walk, preferring to be carried everywhere. This was fine earlier when the weight was not a large enough issue to give somebody a terrible back ache but now things seem a bit different with daddy sporting a perpetual limp owing to the chronic problem with the back.

The once proud parents have absolutely no idea what hit them and all they want is for all this to get over; little do they know that they are doomed for eternity (atleast it will seem like eternity!!)

Considering the damage just one kid can do to its parents, God help those unfortunate enough to have twins,
where trouble(twins) > trouble (1)  + trouble ( 1) !!!