Out of the mouths of Babes

So my sister and her family came to visit this weekend, so we could spend a little time with the newest addition to the family and my eldest nephew could ride his four wheeler. On Saturday they went to my grandmother’s who hasn’t seen the new baby yet, but my eldest nephew didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay with his aunt, who plays ‘war’ with him, and more importantly will play whatever DS game his is playing with no complaints.

After about an hour I couldn’t take playing his games anymore, I passed him on to my father, who took him outside and played in the tree house. I retired to my room to catch a few chapters of the book I was reading. I had gotten to one of those parts where it is a struggle having to put down the book because it’s gotten so good. So it was a blessing to have free time to read.

A little while later my nephew comes in and says, “I’m bored. Will you play with me.” To which I tell him I will in a little bit, and inwardly cringed at the thought of having to play with those little action figures again. I told him to play with my father (who acts likes he’s my nephews age most of the time anyway, they are the perfect pair) and he told me that my father was resting.

“He says he needs to rest and is watching T.V., Nana can’t play with me because she is walking around the house” “Did you ask her what she is doing? I know that Nana would LOVE to drop everything to play with her first grandchild” “No I didn’t ask she is just walking around. Papa is playing with the dog…”

And then he said this.
To me.
His aunt who loves her books.


“You are the only one doing anything useless. You are just reading, and you aren’t even reading something real.”

“Excuse me? This is a book, very important. And real, I’m holding it, ain’t I?" because apparently when someone close to me says horrible things about something I love to do, my grammar and English lessons goes right out the window.

To which he sighed, asked me if I ever read anything real, to which I said replied yes, and he didn’t believe me so I told him I read the newspaper daily. He shrugged and said he would go see what my father was doing. I died a little inside. My nephew who used to love to read only a few short months ago, told me that reading was useless.