{"id":27117,"date":"2026-02-18T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/?p=27117"},"modified":"2026-02-18T22:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:00:11","slug":"my-five-year-old-nephew-refused-to-sit-on-the-couch-curling-up-on-the-cold-floor-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/?p=27117","title":{"rendered":"My five-year-old nephew refused to sit on the couch, curling up on the cold floor instead\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My five-year-old nephew refused to sit on the couch, curling up on the cold floor instead. When I tried to lift him, he screamed, \u201cMy bottom hurts.\u201d I gently raised his shirt and froze\u2014there were scars, far too many. I called my daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n<p> She laughed mockingly. \u201cMy father is a judge. What do you think you can do?\u201d I dialed 911, believing I was saving him\u2014never realizing I had just started a war.<\/p>\n<p>Part 1: The Silent Witness<br \/>\nThe winter sun filtered through the lace curtains of my living room, casting patterned shadows on the Persian rug\u2014a rug I had bought in Beirut in 1982, back when the sound of shelling was my morning alarm. Now, my mornings were filled with the whistle of a tea kettle and the chirping of cardinals in the snow-dusted oak tree outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My five-year-old nephew refused to sit on the couch, curling up on the cold floor instead. When I tried to lift him, he screamed, \u201cMy bottom hurts.\u201d&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27119,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27117\/revisions\/27119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutlife.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}