THE ONE WHERE WE SOLVED THE MYSTERY OF THE ALIEN BABY

And so I have a brother (make that 3 in total), but this story is about the youngest.

And I also have a sister (that would be 2 in total), but the youngest didn't exist just then - so this involves the middle one.

And I also have a cousin (like I'm going to bother to count them - they're endless), but this one involves a slightly older one I grew up with.

And the my sister and my cousin both came to believe that my younger brother (who was a baby at that time), was an alien ...

... NO JOKE.

They had convinced themselves to the point that not only did some relatives think they were crazy, the slightly more paranoid believed them and they themselves felt freaked out being left alone in charge of baby brother. And just to confirm - no, nobody in the family is actually that crazy but there are many sufferers of hyperactive imaginations formed by irrational conclusions.

How the story began ...

Before the mystery was solved and put to rest, we must go way back to the beginning. Our baby brother was born a genius, equipped with super smarts that exhibited themselves from the day he entered this world.

Everything he did was early, from sitting up, talking, crawling, walking, etc. He flew through the stages.

Now the story of him being an alien was began with my sister and cousin, triggered by his super speedy advancement. They had briefly mentioned their suspicions before but like many, I just thought them being silly. I only realised how truly freaked out they were when the grown-ups went out and the three of us were in the house, left in charge of sleeping baby brother who was upstairs.
After a while baby brother wakes up and starts crying, wanting to be comforted and craving attention and probably hungry after a good old nap. I was downstairs and the two were scattered somewhere around the house but I knew they were closer to baby brother so I assumed that they would bring him down where all three of us would smother him with attention and get him fed ... until they both approached me that was.
They were too freaked out to approach him and if I could get him and bring him downstairs, I just thought they were being silly and went and got him and brought him downstairs.
Whilst food was being prepared and we were all entertaining him, I asked them out of curiosity what on earth made them think that baby brother was an alien?
The answer?
Even though baby brother couldn't quite walk yet he somehow had the uncanny ability to get himself downstairs without anybody noticing or figuring how he would get downstairs in the first place. I just thought they were exaggerating and figured that someone must have just plopped him downstairs without anyone realising (it was a busy household after all). I brushed all those thoughts aside, until the next day.
Naptime was quickly approaching and so I went to take baby brother upstairs afterwards I came back down the stairs, only to have the shock of my life as I glanced backwards.
Why?
There was baby brother sat at the bottom of the stairs, looking back up at me with a the biggest grin on his face, and the shock of suddenly seeing him there when I had just left him in his cot made me yelp. That was what attracted the attention of my cousin and sister who only had "see?! I told you so!" to tell me as I explained what happened.
I just picked up baby brother and put him back in the cot and went back downstairs, I turned round just to check and there he was, chuckling away. This kid had a secret and he knew it.
I made it my mission to find out what it was. And find out was what I did.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: SPY TIME
I gathered my sister and cousin, picked up baby brother again but this time before setting him into his cot, I told the girls to hide somewhere where they could watch him without being seen. This baby was smart, we just needed to outsmart him.
After they hid in the neighbouring rooms, I set him down like usual (cuddles and kisses and all) and made my way slowly out of the room. He kept his beady eyes on me until I left, I then pretended that I was going down the stairs but in reality I had hid in the bathroom. Baby brother had already sprung into action because I barely had enough time to hide as he went crawling past like Speedy Gonzales and headed straight for the stairs.
I watched as baby brother got himself into position (seated upright) and shuffled his way on his butt (using the nappy as a cushion) downstairs. The way and the speed he did it in was a little creepy to watch, something about the way he moved so quick reminded me of a scurrying spider. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, he just sat there waiting to surprise someone.
That was when we all came out of our hiding places and ended up surprising him. His little face when he saw us creeping behind him. He probably realised we discovered his secret but he chuckled anyway. Now that we could see that it wasn't teleportation that brought baby brother downstairs, just his super smarts, the next thing we were stumped with was how he managed to get out of the cot in the first place?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: SPY TIME - TAKE 2
So once again, baby brother was taken upstairs, my cousin and sister hid in the neighbouring rooms and I placed baby brother in his cot and then left, knowing he was watching me the entire time. But this time I quickly crouched down and watched him through the crack by the door hinges. I believe baby brother should have received a medal for what I saw.
Baby brother's cot was in the parent's room, his cot adjacent to their bed and with that, what he did was this.
He would use the cot bars to lift himself up, once standing he would place his little feet through the bars to reach the bed and that would raise him up a notch or two. Using this new height advantage he would then fling himself over the cot and land on parents bed (seriously), he would wait for the bouncing to stop and then he would roll across the bed super fast to the other side and then with his little palms cling onto the duvet.
( Now if you have been exposed to a baby, whether its your child, sibling, grandson, niece/nephew etc, you will know that a baby grips like a vice. )
Once his grip was secure he would slowly lower himself to the ground and like I had mentioned earlier, crawl like Speedy Gonzales to the stairs. Now if only you were there to see the look of surprise on his face when I intercepted him.
I picked him up, put him back in the cot but this time before leaving I separated the cot from the bed, and that was when his face fell. The jig was up and he knew it, the chasm I had created between his cot and the exit was something he knew he couldn't traverse and he began bawling straight away.
I kissed him and left the room, the didn't last anywhere near 5mins - naptime had already approached and all that cheeky adventuring had tired him out anyway.
He was soon fast asleep and that was the one where we solved the mystery of the alien baby.

THE ONE WHERE WE THOUGHT OUR YOUNGER COUSIN WAS A MONSTER

BICHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
translation : { monsterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! }

That was what me and my cousins were screaming when we crowded into the bathroom that evening, many, many years ago. That, and just screaming in general - you know, the whole process of making as much noise as possible when the crap has been scared out of you.

Now so that this story starts making some sort of sense, I guess it needs to start from the beginning ...

When I was a kid, the weekend was the time when our parents would all get together and bring all the kids together to a certain relatives house where the parents would catch up and the kids would be running riot.

If you come from a large family, I am sure that you can relate.

So that the parents could get some peace, us kids would be put in one end of the house where we could rock out and go rugrat wild as much as we wanted without disturbing the peace of the grown-ups. We would hold down our fort and be perfect noisy angels elsewhere ... until dinnertime.

Kids are usually known for being picky when it comes to food - not us, we knew that whatever was being prepared in that peaceful haven the grown-ups created was always going to be goooooooooooooooooood!

And all it took to unleash mass chaos into the dining area was for one brave adult to announce one phrase and one phrase only ...

" MIUDOS! VENHAM COMER! "

translation : { " kids! come and eat! " }

That one phrase would be enough for all hell to break loose as we would all freeze in the midst of all the shenanigans we had created from our imaginations - and then we would all scramble to get to the bathroom first, shoving each other out of the way as we did so.

Why? Because everyone wanted to be first to wash their hands and be seated at the table of course!

Now the layout of my uncles home was that downstairs was the kids domain, the bedroom/playroom was their along with the smaller bathroom - those that were quick enough would cram into the downstairs bathroom to was their hands while the rest had to bolt upstairs.

So that is what the rest of us did - full tilt. We went rushing into the bathroom, didn't bother to turn on the lights (in this race every second counted and besides we were only washing our hands - the open door was just about enough light for that).

We froze. Because on the other side of that very same bathroom, there was something on the toilet and in the darkness it was incredibly difficult to make out what that something was.

We were startled of course, we hadn't expected anyone to be in there - let alone something! But there was this brief silence where we stood staring at it, and it at us. All that we could make out in the dark were eyes, eyes that were blinking right back at us ... that part wasn't the scary part. The scary part was when it spoke, and all you could see were it's teeth as it smiled and said ...

... hello.

And we screamed, we screamed and we screamed and we screamed.

The only logical explanation all of our tiny brains could come up with in that moment was that it was a monster, a real life, coming out of the toilet, talking monster. And we screamed some more.

In fact we screamed so much that the grown-ups came to our rescue, pots, pans and fists in hands - wondering what the hell was going on.

Until one of them turned on the light ...

... and what did the clarity of light reveal to all of us?

That sitting on the porcelain throne was no monster at all, not unless you can call the baby cousin (toddler) of the family a monster.

Our baby cousin just sat there laughing at us, it was one of the few times that I recall seeing a baby laugh so gleefully and with so much gusto. In the end we burst out laughing too even though a good ten seconds before we were almost ready to wet ourselves.

Essentially what had happened was that while we were playing, our cousin got forgotten and made his way to the realm of the grown-ups and had clearly at some point needed to use the bathroom. In our frenzy and ambition to be first at the dinner table - we had forgotten all about that and that was the one where we thought our younger cousin was a monster.