So yesterday you were introduced briefly to my lovely ten year old cousin. Today we will delve further into the life of this possessed child.

So, my uncle is driving home from the airport with the spawn sitting in the back with me. She keeps talking non-stop about everything under the sun. At one point she looks at my legs and touches my fishnet stockings. "I really like this," she says as she takes one of her little fingers, puts them inbetween the holes, and totally destroys the stockings by ripping them. Great. She looks a little worried, almost sure that she's about to get a yelling, but I tell her that everything can be replaced but she just has to be careful about playing with things.

The first couple of weeks were actually quite fun. She was a handful and we would fight everyday (one day she got so angry that she spat on the floor...a gesture that was supposed to indicate her spitting on me), but I was enjoying Toronto, the weather, and being happily unemployed. I tried again to explain to her parents that the spawn needed help, real help, but they wouldn't listen to me.

One day, the son of a close family friend came to visit Toronto. He was studying in some god-forsaken university somewhere in Canada and wanted to escape for a little bit. Very attractive boy, half Italian, half Egyptian (the Italian side the dominant one). 19, rower (he actually got a scholarship at his school for rowing...that's how they snatched him from AUC), TALL (6 feet 6 inches). If I hadn't watched him grow up all these years and if I were a pervert, I would've had a lot of fun with that boy!

Anyway, he's visiting Toronto...I take him around the city, we catch up. Later on we return to my uncle's house for dinner where he meets, for the first time, the spawn. The spawn falls in love at first sight and is all over him, being extremely nice. He can't understand why everyone complains about her so much and is being very friendly with her. Fine. As long as she's behaving, let her do whatever she wants.

After dinner we go to sit in the living room. Gorgeous guy and I decide to exchange phone numbers and e-mails in case he ever plans on visiting New York. I take out some paper, write my info, and give it to gorgeous guy. While he's writing down his info, spawn comes and sits on my legs. Then, without any provocation, without ANY warning, I see a little fist come towards my face and BAM!! THE LITTLE SHIT PUNCHES ME OUT! PUNCHES ME OUT!!! Not a girly slap in the face, a real, bonafide, punch in the face. I froze for a second. My first reaction was to pick her up and slam her body to the ground, but I knew that wasn't a viable option. Still sitting on my lap, we stared each other down while I waited for my blood to stop boiling. I then took her off my lap and told her not to talk to me ever again. Now, this all took place in the time span of, I guess, ten seconds but it was the longest ten seconds of my life. Gorgeous guy wasn't sure what to do, my uncle only saw the bit of me pushing his daughter off. Spawn runs off to the staircase and hides there, still fuming.

Later I learned that I was punched for "flirting" with her crush. According to Spawn, I was making kissy faces at gorgeous guy and usurping her place in his world. I was also belittling and making fun of her. All this because of an e-mail exchange.

Her parents forced her to apologize, but she did it with rolling eyes, so I never accepted the apology. Yes, she was eight at the time and I should be an adult, but I was not going to enable this child to continue this kind of behavior. If everyone else didn't care and can't see what's happening, I wasn't going to be part of it.

Last summer when they came to visit, she was acting out again. I had just walked into the living room and told her to relax. She stopped was she was doing, stared at me, put her hand on her hip, and menacingly said, "Do you remember what happened last year???" THE LITTLE SHIT WAS THREATENING ME!!!!!!!!!!!! I was caught so off guard that I was stricken dumb. I mumbled something about something and walked off. That night, I had a dream that she snuck into my room with a sharp knife and slit my throat. I couldn't scream, couldn't throw anything against the wall to call for help.

Since I've been working on a post-graduate degree in Education, I've taken a handful of classes on child psychology and have now diagnosed my cousin as having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). I'm not being facetious. She exhibits all the symptoms and the reason she's so out of control is because the common disciplinary measures that all parents use with their kids cannot work on an ADD child.

I decided yesterday to try to some of the behavorial modification techniques that I learned on the spawn. And you know what? They worked! It was AMAZING. I took her out for two hours. We went to the bookstore, the diner, a clothing store, and as I manipulated her behavior I was amazed at what a completely different person she became. The ADD child, for example, CANNOT sit still. They simply can't. Their brain is all over the place. And so instead of yelling at her to sit in her seat at the diner, I let her get up, look at the books she bought, throw something out in the garbage, basically take a break from the sitting still.

Don't get me wrong. She's still a little shitface. But at least I've figured out a way to deal with her.

As we were walking home, she held my hand and said, "I'm very, very sorry."

Shit, I thought...we just had a great morning. What in the world could she have done?

"What are you sorry for?"

"I'm sorry for punching you last year [it was actually two years ago]. You remember when I punched you?"

"Yeah, I remember. I was very upset."

"Well, I'm really sorry."