Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig xlhdns.com. NS
Answer
xlhdns.com. 1 NS ns2.ee.net.
xlhdns.com. 1 NS ns1.ee.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.ee.net. 2 A 206.222.25.202
ns2.ee.net. 2 A 206.222.25.203
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0