Nephew Knows

My five-year-old nephew shocked the hell out of me at the dinner table on Christmas day. With no apparent pretext, he looked at me abashedly and muttered something to the effect of, "I don't want you to have tears."

Well, the fact is that I had been crying during the two weeks leading up to Christmas because I'd gotten so caught up in Stephenie Meyers' "Twilight Saga" that I was an emotional wreck (more about that later).

Where had my nephew gotten the idea that I'd been upset? What was the source of his incredible insight? I mean, come on, of all things he could possibly have said, why would he have picked up on my emotional distress when I hadn't even been thinking about it at dinner?

I jokingly told my brother that my nephew had probably inherited my "formidable telepathic powers," but I don't really think it's a joke. I sometimes have flashes of insight about mundane things, such as which Seinfeld episode would be shown on a given night, but I'm also good at reading people and their emotions. Perhaps, through the miracle of DNA, my nephew has inherited a gift along those lines. He's going to be an interesting fellow to watch grow up ... and for so many other reasons, too.