The Good Ear

You cry while laughing much?  I don't, but I am, even as I type.  My cold has driven me to bed, and keeps me here, but Felix is sitting outside my bedroom door, singing to himself, loudly.  Every time I get ready to yell at him I start laughing, and crying.  And if I shout with laughter in my voice he hears only the merriment and takes it as encouragement; in trying to turn him off I've so far only succeeded in ratcheting up the volume.  No nap for me.

OK, I've finally managed to call him into the room, and by pretending to be angry and threatening not to give him any more snacks today, I've silenced him...temporarily.  Sounds cruel, I'm sure, stomping on my boy's creative instincts so.  Unless you're a parent, in which case I'm sure you understand completely.

This inclination to sing is a mixed blessing.  I have a good ear, Talia too, and Felix, it seems, has inherited these abilities.  He loves to sing, does it all the time, usually in tune, and often with lyrics of his own devising.  How amusing!  How creative!  Ultimately, how annoying!

How much of this am I supposed to put up with?  How much of it can I stand?  I don't know if I'm peculiarly prone to getting bits of music trapped in my head, but for sure it's a vulnerability of mine, and a devastating one.  The wrong sample can easily ruin a day, driving me to distraction or worse, and apt not to poison just one but to pop up again every few days for a week or two before finally disappearing...until the next time.

I am used to Felix infecting our household with the disease of the week, acquired in the pathogenic scrum that is a gregarious child's milieu.  He picks up as well a large variety of memes, some--superheroes, "Star War"--more commercial than--chasing people with sticks--others, at school and on the playground.  And then there are the songs.  We have been careful to steer him towards Elizabeth Mitchell and away from Rafi, that is to say to expose him to the less virulent of the childrens' corpus.  Our defense, I realize, is incomplete, as he bursts into a rousing round of "Bob the Builder, can we do it? YES WE CAN!"  Where did you learn that?  I DON'T KNOW!

Now he is being totally quiet, and that is the worst sound of all.