Make it stop!

Michael the Unexpected, our 2-year-old king and ruler of all he surveys, has decreed that we shall watch The Wiggles until our heads burst.

It started innocently enough. One morning before his sisters went off to school, the tv was turned on and The Wiggles were singing and dancing. He was captivated immediately.

His mom and me, being typical foolish parents who’ve been stripped of rationality and long-term thinking, decided it would be good to encourage this entertainment for him. “It will be a nice break from Elmo,” we convinced ourselves.

Four DVDs and countless weeks later, we are entirely saturated with them.

Now, don’t get me wrong: they’re innocent enough, wacky, not boring, not sappy, have depth enough to keep any toddler amused for quite a while, and are generally very entertaining. I would even take him to see them in concert if that were a possibility (see statement above about my having been stripped of rationality).

However, we are finding one little problem: their songs are incredibly sticky.

By this, I mean they get stuck in your head.

Not the usual kind of stuck, like some oldies, anything by Barry Manilow or the theme from Bonanza.

No. The Wiggles produce songs that pack their bags, invade your cranium, set up housekeeping and cannot be removed without the use of explosives and an overwhelming quantity of alcohol.

People out there who have voices in their heads know what I’m talking about.

For example, at any given moment – and I am being entirely serious here – I can ask my wife what song she has stuck in her head, and she will begin singing a Wiggles tune. She may even perform the dance step to it. The even scarier part is that nine times out of ten, we’ll have the same one playing in our head at the same time (I think this could be a good question to have on an internet dating profile to prove compatibility: “What Wiggles tune do you have stuck in your head? If you have the same one, you’re a good match.”).

What is it about those songs that are so sticky? I really don’t know. Is it because they’re incredibly simple? Is it the delivery? Is it the fact that we hear them over and over and over again ad infinitum, ad nauseum, sic transit gloria mundi, day in, day out for weeks? I dunno.

But no matter, because Michael likes them. Every morning when he gets up, he asks “a wiggle? a wiggle? a wiggle?” and if we don’t respond quickly enough, it escalates: “a wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle?” So on goes The Wiggles. It might preempt the news, it might preempt Bonanza (with that catchy theme), it might preempt That’s So Raven — it doesn’t matter. When The Wiggles are to be had, they are to be had now.

For those of you with toddlers who love The Wiggles, I think you can comiserate. We should start a support group. We need it.

I knew how bad it was when I came upon my wife and Michael in the family room watching the Teletubbies, on a rare occasion when she had had enough Wiggles. Michael was actually interested in them. But the sad comment came from my wife’s mouth: “You know, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m finding the Teletubbies are very refreshing.”