Are we all in this together?

Earlier this week, I was startled awake in the early morning hours (early morning being 7am, just to clarify.) I was confused by my fugue state and for split seconds thought that we were having a home invasion by Hanson, The Jackson 5, Donny Osmond and the cast from Grease (the original soundtrack cast.) The music was blaring, and I couldn’t quite make out the words, but I could hear my daughter shrieking over the thumping of the bass.

I quickly stumbled out of bed, mumbling to myself, “must-save-children-hurry-downstairs.” But as I got closer to the staircase, the music became much clearer and I realized that my kids were having their own High School Musical concert in the playroom.

Now, we have a rule in our house, the volume is not to exceed # 15 on the TV, but I frequently find that my kids have upped it into the 20’s. On this morning, however, they had cranked it into the 40’s.

As I swung into the room, angry that they had so selfishly disturbed my slumber, I was fully prepared to ban them from all things related to the tv, music, and anything else enjoyable. Before I could utter a word (not that they would have heard me anyways) I caught a glimpse of Pooper doing hand motions while he sang, “keep your head in the game, keep your head in the game.” And Beauty was shimmying, head tossed back, singing (and I use that term loosely) from the deepest parts of her diaphragm.

I stopped and watched, my anger melted to amusement, and some weird sense of pride. Pride that my kids were growing up, normally, developing their own sense of self (as much as one can in our media age where HSM is jammed down their throats.)

Tiptoeing out of the room, I decided to let them enjoy this childhood moment.

Little did I know that this same scenario would replay over and over again, basically non-stop throughout the week. They even played, “music videos” with their neighborhood friends, blaring the High School Musical soundtrack from the porch, dancing along with their McDonalds Happy Meal/American Idol “microphones” in their hands.

Now, I like the music to HSM, it’s definitely easier on the ears than Barney, or The Doodlebops. But believe it or not, there is a limit.

Just when I thought my head might explode and spastic high schoolers might pop out singing, we reached the amazing crescendo of the HSM phenomenon. The TV premiere of High School Musical 2. My kids were so worked up about watching it Friday night, so I let them stay up late and watch it.

When it was over, Pooper remarked, “It wasn’t the same as the first one.” Um, yeah, it wasn’t the first one, it was a different story, with the same kids, and very similar music, and to be honest, an eerily familiar story line. Boy likes girl, different rich girl likes boy, different rich girl tries to win boy over, but in the end, boy connects with the original girl, and it’s true love, and then unicorns and ponies fly out of everyone’s ears.

When it was all over, I felt quite satisfied, that the HSM obsession was now complete, and we could move on with life.

Until tonight. When my kids informed me, that the Disney Channel, never ones to pass up a good opportunity for overkill, was having a High School Musical 2 sing-a-long. They wanted me to go to wwwdotdisneydotcombackslashhighschoolmusical2 and print off the lyrics, so that they could “sing along” tonight.

I thought I was going to choke on my own breath. WHAT? Aren’t we done with HSM2? We listened to HSM1 all week, then had the grand finale with the premiere of HSM2, and I even promised to get you all the CD for Christmas (far enough away that they might forget) and now we have to hear it all over again, via some commercialized karaoke night?

So, Im signing off, as the printing is done, and Im going to go hand the kids the lyric sheets, and sit and watch them, and maybe sing along, but definitely be in awe of how grown up they have become. And then Ill throw up.