I have good news and bad news.

First, the good: The gods have blessed us and my husband and I discovered something that makes our small son stop wriggling around for more than five seconds. This thing actually occupies him for several minutes at a time and is a magical cure-all for whining, crying, temper-tantrums and general pissed-off-ness.

The bad? It has possibly significantly altered the neurons in my brain.

I’m talking, of course, about the video Baby Songs. If you haven’t heard of it, please get yourself up to speed. You’ll be happy you did.

I first heard Baby Songs when my sister was little. It was the only thing that would shut her up (seeing a pattern here?) when I babysat, so in my wise thirteen years of wisdom, I let her watch it whenever she wanted. The catchy tunes soon seared into my very cerebral cortex and I memorized all the lyrics.

Fast forward to many years later. For Christmas, my sister bought my son Baby Songs. I laughed and stuffed it behind my boxed sets of The Office. Then, a few weeks ago, when my son was being particularly ornery, I pulled it out in a last-ditch effort before I threw myself out the window.

And. Holy. Crap.

He became hypnotized by the songs, “Daddy Be A Horsey,” “Walking,” and many, many others.

I minored in history in college, OK? I should’ve seen this coming–history ALWAYS repeats itself. Duh.

Except now I find myself singing on my way to and from work lyrics such as: “Walking, walking, walking, walking/Seems so easy now/But I remember when I was small/And I did not know how.” It’s like a part of my brain, lying dormant, was suddenly reactivated and now cannot ever be shut off. And I’m sort of ashamed, sort of weirdly proud that I actually went on the website for the guy who wrote and sung all the songs on the tape. His website did not, however, offer any sort of antidote or remedy to fix my now slightly damaged brain.

Please tell me I’m not the only one to suffer the horrors of not only KNOWING all the lyrics to horrid kid songs, but regularly find yourself WHISTLING them in public places.

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