How to Make Your Grandmother Cry

1. As soon as she leaves the room to make a bottle for the baby, get in a fight with your big brother over the Chutes and Ladders box.

2. When she runs back into the room, holding the baby and trying (unsuccessfully) to screw the top on the bottle, ignore her command to "Let go of that box!"

3. While she is trying to shift the baby to her other arm without spilling the formula all over the baby, bite your big brother on the thumb.

4. Drop the box when he does, and ignore your grandmother's command to "go to your room right now!"

5. Run out of the room, laughing hysterically.

6. Remain out of sight while your grandmother takes your brother into the bathroom and runs cold water over his hand. Do not reappear when she leads him to the couch in the living room and finally gives the baby her bottle and sits your brother down and comforts him but also tells him that he really asked for it by pulling the box out of your hand to begin with.

7. Stay wherever you are very quietly while she wipes the formula off the baby's neck and takes her upstairs and puts her in her crib.

8. Do not respond when your grandmother comes back downstairs and calls you. Do not make a sound while she looks in the den and under the dining room table and in all of the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and behind the boots and the backpacks in the hall closet. Sit really, really quietly while she goes back upstairs and looks in all of the bedrooms and under the beds and behind the shower curtain, and comes back downstairs and then goes right back up again because your brother advises her to check behind the blue chair and in the closet, because "that's where he likes to hide," but you aren't there.

9. Don't giggle when your brother comments, "he must have found a really good hiding place."

10. Stay well hidden while she imagines every unimaginable thing that could have possibly happened to you in the last seven minutes, and checks the doors to make sure they're locked and you haven't gone outside, and sends your brother down the basement to see if you're there, and then goes down the basement herself just to make sure, and then decides that maybe she hasn't really looked behind the couch in the living room, but she's sure you can't be there, because that's where she was sitting with your big brother and there's no way you could have gotten back there without being seen, unless... you managed to sneak in there during the 60 seconds she was in the bathroom with your brother, running cold water over his hand, and she looks behind the couch and there you are, grinning ear to ear.

11. Climb over the back of the couch and sit down next to your grandmother, and just keep grinning your insane little grin while she buries her face in her hands and tries to control herself because she honestly does not know whether she is going to laugh or cry or scream or just grab you and give you a huge hug.

12. Continue to sit next to your grandmother on the couch, beaming in your devilish little way with pride and self-satisfaction, until she recovers her composure, or at least her sanity, and tells you that she doesn't know what she's going to do with you, so it's really a very good thing that you are absolutely the most adorable child on the entire planet.