The Things We Fight About

In our family, we bicker a lot. And, fight. And, we sometimes argue. It can get pretty silly sometimes. Like the time the boys got into a heated discussion about who moves around more in his sleep. Or the time when all three kids wound up in a cartoonish pile of flailing arms, legs and heads over who should get the last brownie. (I ate it while they were fighting.)

Lately though, I've noticed that there is one particular topic that seems to come up more than any other.

The single biggest item of contention in our house is... Wait for it...

Books.

I know, what could possible be so earth shatteringly, argument-inducing about books? Well, we're a family of bibliophiles. We all read avidly, and now that all five of us are reading. it's gotten a little competitive. We argue over who gets to read a book first, and who has to wait. We fight over who gets to reread the book first, and who gets to have the book next to their bed so they can read first thing in the morning. We have to renew books online, because everyone wants to read the good ones again. We all have multiple books going at once, and we overlap reading a lot, just to make it all good and confusing.


I love that we all love books so much. And, I'm thrilled that we're all readers now. We've got to come up with some sort of Book Treaty though. Rules of conduct and engagement. Stuff like:

1. Thou shalt not grab books out of another reader's hands, regardless of whether or not that reader is taunting you with said book.
   
2. Thou shalt not dog ear the pages, or remove another reader's bookmark, or try to remove pages of particular interest from the book (that last one's for Tater Tot).
   
3. Thou shalt return books to the school library shelf, public library basket, or the shelf from whence it came when finished.
   
4. Thou shalt NOT leave books in the bathtub, the laundry hamper or in the farthest, ickiest back corner under a bed.
5. Thou shalt not hide favorite books in obscure locations and then attempt to charge "finding fees" when asked to locate them.

You see where I'm going here. Maybe writing up The Book Rules will be my weekend project. Right after I finish this great book I'm reading.