If your kids haven’t discovered “Baby Shark” consider yourself lucky. If they have, I’m here to commiserate by sharing our family’s journey through the latest toddler craze.

1. Denial – This can’t be a thing. There’s no way a song with 2 words per verse and just 3 words in the bridge can have almost 2 billion views on Youtube. It’s just not possible that the 2-year-old already does all the hand motions. She hasn’t even mastered her spoon and we’ve been working on that for months. No. I refuse to accept this.
2. Anger – I really don’t know what the babysitter was thinking of when she introduced this audio heroin to my kids. If she wanted a raise, she should have just asked for one. This has to be about me asking her to put the toys away. There just has to be some super villain out there trying to punish parents for procreating, and whoever it is, I’m willing to bet they’re also responsible for Disney ticket prices and Calilou.
3. Bargaining – Please, please, ask to listen to something else; anything else. How about the Trolls soundtrack? Let it Go? Moana! You LOVE Moana. Let’s see how far she’ll go. No? Ok, how about a movie? Shrek! I know I said it has bad words but if you promise not to repeat them you can watch it. Listen, if you let me turn this song off, I’ll let you wear your Halloween costume to soccer practice.
4. Depression – Sweat pants – check. Ice cream – check. Sure, the kids are sleeping but why would I return any texts or open that book on my nightstand? None of it matters because no matter what I do I’ll be hearing “doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo…doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo…doo doo doo!” I can’t make it go away. It’s never going away. The moment they wake up they’ll be asking for it and if I don’t give in, they’ll just sing it anyway, off key, all the way to school.
5. Acceptance – This is my life now. I Amazon Primed matching chevron shirts for the family. I’m subscribed to the PinkFong Youtube channel so I’m the first to see any follow-up tracks. We line up each night before bed to perfect our hunt swerve but to be honest my husband is really holding us back.

Here we are, 30 days since we were first exposed and we’re just taking it day by day. We’ll never forget what life was like BBS (before Baby Shark) and we’re thankful for all the casseroles. Cheers, friends.