All The Corners Of The World

When I was a little girl, my parents would cram all six of us kids into the station wagon (real wood panels!) every summer and drive us from our home in Pennsylvania to my grandparents' farm near Ontario, Canada. There's an old family legend about me during one of these trips. At some point during the long drive on the turnpike, I said, "I have to pee!" and my Dad kept saying, "Just hold it in for a little bit longer. There's a bathroom just around the corner." I sat there wriggling desperately in the back seat for a while until I said, "But Daddy, there aren't any corners on this road."

You see? I was a genius way back then too.

Move forward about 225 years to this December when my lovely friend K came to Paris with her little three-year-old PJ for Christmas and New Years. Some of my friends here put some money down and bet that I would not be able to handle having a three-year-old in my tiny apartment for six weeks. Hell, I even put money on that one. You see, I never had kids because I never wanted kids. They're little foreign objects with mysterious things called diapers.

As a matter of fact, I was in my friend G's station wagon recently, late for something or other and barreling down the peripherique, and her child started bawling from her car seat. G says, "Can you climb in the back seat and find her sippy cup and give it to her?" (Knowing her, I'm surprised she didn't say, "Can you climb out the window, onto the roof, unstrap the skis and snowmobile and find my pink Samsonite luggage and get her sippy cup out of it and then open the cooler and get some milk and pour it into the sippy cup and then climb back in the window and give it to her?" But, she didn't.)

I looked at G in my best you-gotta-be-shitting-me eyebrow lift and she simply smiled back at me. She knows I'm a sap. I said, "I hate children." and climbed into the back seat to do my duty.

ANYhoo, even though I'm a certified child hater, we all lost the bet.

Because PJ is kind of special to me. I used to talk to her while she was in her mommy's belly and I was even allowed to hold her when she was just a tiny baby. One time, K took the risk of leaving PJ in my care for an hour or so and I managed to almost kill PJ by leaving her on my pillow-top bed. I surrounded her with extra pillows, but three seconds in the kitchen and I returned to see she had climbed right on top of the pillows and was staring down at the floor 500 feet below, just ready to do her best tuck and roll. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I screamed. She almost died from that, too.

I climbed into the bed with her and held on to her for dear life. She was delighted that I was there to play with her, but after a while she started to cry. Uh-oh. Bottle? WAHHH! Guess not. Vodka? WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Ok, OK! You're right, PJ. Not funny. (Please god, please don't make me change a diaper.) WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Just hang in there, honey! The bathroom's just around the corner. WAHHHHHHHHH! OK. I guess I'm going to change a diaper. Holy crap.

K came back and the fresh new diaper was on PJ's head. Well, that was just a diversion so that PJ couldn't tell that I had NO idea how to put a diaper on. "Stop watching me!" I said to her big, serious eyes, while her chubby legs languished lazily in the air. "Here, play with this." And I gave her the diaper. Finally, I managed to put another diaper on her "area." But when K returned, she told me it was backwards. It was all ok in the end, though. No spillage occurred on my watch.

When K and PJ arrived in Paris, PJ took one look at the metal ladder up to my suspended bed and she scrambled right on up. No fear. No stumbling. Then she would hang her head over the edge and show us her hair. I'm more grown up now, so I didn't scream when she did all that.

But PJ? She screamed. Yes, she did. But only 39 a few times during the entire stay. This happened when Mommy took away her DVD player and told her to go to bed. Or when Mommy gave her lunch and said, "I don't care if you don't like pasta, you're going to eat it." Or when her Mommy told her she could NOT wear her glass slippers on our trek to the Louvre and to put on her pink princess boots instead.

Sometimes, these crying sessions would be quickly solved, since K is the calmest Mommy on the planet. But other times? Not so much. It went like this:

K: If you don't stop crying right now, I will put you in the corner.
PJ: WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
K: OK! That's it! Get in the corner!

I'd be in the kitchen thinking, "Is there an official bad-child corner in my apartment? I'm not an official parent. So, I can't possibly have an official, designated corner." And I'd come out of the kitchen and there PJ would be, sitting with her back against the wall and her side against my tall cabinet. Or, she'd be in my entryway, with her back against the coat rack and her side against my closet doors. Well, I guess those can be considered corners. PJ thought they were. And that's all that mattered.

She'd be sitting there wailing, her legs kicking the wood floor, her arms outstretched like a 50's sci-fi B-movie robot.

PJ: MAAAAAA-MAAAAAAAA! HOOOOOOOOOLD MEEEEEEEEEEE!
K: I won't start the clock until you stop crying. So, the sooner you stop crying, the faster you can start your one minute in the corner.
PJ: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!
K: OK, now it's three minutes.
PJ: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (Legs in a blur, slamming the floor. Arms still outstretched in take-me-to-your-leader fashion)
LISA: Wow. She's gonna hurt herself.
K: Nah. She did this in Newark airport right before we boarded the plane to Paris.
PJ: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
LISA: OMG. You're kidding!
PJ: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
K: Nope. I just put her in the corner until she finally stopped.

I'm in awe, thinking, "There are CORNERS in Newark airport TOO? Wow."

I guess I just got a little peak into the esoteric Mommy world of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny...and corners. PJ didn't believe us when we told her Santa was going to come into my apartment to deliver her gifts. She said, "There's no fireplace here." Uh-oh. It's just a matter of time. Pretty soon she'll say, "But Mommy, these are not REAL corners." And K will have to make some new shit up to stop PJ from throwing a fit.

I'll be on the roof of G's car at that point. Hanging on to the corner of the luggage rack for dear life, missing K and PJ like crazy.