One Hundred Thirty Nine: Let It Rip

The clear Winning Birthday Present this year was a game called BeyBlade. The kids play it every morning at 6 a.m. and every evening after dinner until bed. There's even a cartoon on every morning at 6:30 a.m. dedicated to teaching kids how to play. (Genius Marketing!)

The game is basically just a bowl (the "battle arena") and two old fashioned tops ("Pegasus" and "L-Drago"). The tops battle it out in the arena and the last one standing gets a point.

Simple enough.

But it is unfortunate that the makers of the game added an obnoxious element by including the need to start each game with yelling from each of the players.

"THREE! TWO! ONE! LET IT RIP," the instructions say to shout before each battle.

As you can imagine, that alone is irritating enough to hear at 6 a.m., but in our house it goes more like this:

THREE! TWO!...
   Nooo! I was supposed to say three-two-one!
Nooooo! You said three-two-one last time!
   Nooooooo!
Fine! I'm not going to play!
   Fine, you can say three-two-one this time!
THREE! TWO! ONE! LET IT RIP!

Blake is already getting in on the action

and so far doesn't seem to have any

problems yelling.