Oh! Make It Stop!!!!

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My 3-year old nephew Dylan and his little baby sister, Layla were over last night as my niece went to visit my nephew, who is now 7 weeks into his hospital vacation. Thankfully, he is on the mend, but there is still a ways to go.

I want to fill him in a little on what he missed last night.

All right, to be honest, they arrived just after dinner, and I headed to the YMCA for a little work and a dip in the hot tub. I actually did a few miles on the bike and a mile on the track, listening to Bruce on the I-pod, so I was in a pretty decent frame of mind when I returned.

As soon as I walked in the door, Kathy made a plea.

"Watch them for a few minutes, I need a break."

It was a plea that hearkened back to the days when our kids were young and it sort of made my skin crawl as Dylan was on the floor between three singing Christmas decorations - a Santa that was belting out Jingle Bells, a tree that was doing the old Bing Crosby song, and a couple of snowmen that were butchering another joy-filled tune. When one stopped singing, he started the song over. Songs were beginning and ending in a sort of rap miss-mash of happy Christmas bullshit.

And Dylan was dancing and singing too.

Layla was crying. I can hardly look at her anyway without breaking into the rock and roll version of the Clapton song, so needless to say there was a lot of music rumbling through my brain.

And there was the overwhelming thought: MAKE IT STOP!!!!!

Layla was smiling at me...at first...then she was crying at me...JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS!

There was a ripe smell coming from somewhere. My children had long since left the scene.

Where the hell did Kathy go?

"This is a good song," Dylan screamed as he re-started one of them.

Layla cries. Somewhere in the distance a dog barks. My pounding head is bowed as I realize that I am completely unprepared for this onslaught of noise and aggravation.

Yet I am not truly aggravated. It will all end soon.

And remember how nice it was to lay eyes on my wife at the Christmas party last week? Well, it was nothing like the swell of emotions I felt as she headed down the stairs to relieve me of my duties.

"Enjoying the music?" she asked. "Aww, Layla's crying."

"For the love of God you have to make it stop," I said.

"Jingle Bells!" Dylan yelled. He started the song over again.

Thank God my kids are now big lumps of laziness who shuffle to their rooms in dead silence after wolfing down my food.

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