Ethan's Three Dog Night

Parenting isn't such a tough thing, no matter how much we parents might say it is. We use our best judgment to teach our kids in a way that will make them grow, learn, mature, or otherwise become the people they are going to become.

Actually, writing that out makes me realize that it is kind of difficult at times.

One such example: last night. Ethan has a tendency have bad dreams, scary encounters in his mind that he doesn't like to talk about. Probably from having to watch all those Hannah Montana episodes his sister makes him watch (that's enough to scare anyone)!

So last night, he calls me into his room to say he was feeling scared and couldn't get to sleep. Ethan has a tendency to use his stuffed animals, of which most are of the faux canine variety. He has a favorite one, which you can see in his arm in the adjacent picture, but he also has some big dogs. On nights like this, he tends to bulk up the number of stuffed animals, sometime to the point of almost burying himself in them. Last night was one of those evenings.

As I looked at him, after he had fallen asleep, I was reminded of the story of how Three Dog Night got their name. For those of you who are not familiar, the band has said that it came from one of their girlfriends (at the time), who shared a story read in a magazine. It basically goes like this: On cold nights, indigenous Australians would customarily sleep in a hole in the ground whilst embracing a dingo, a native species of wild dog. On colder nights they would sleep with two dogs and if a night was especially cold, it was a "three dog night." With the band having three lead singers, it seemed like a good name for them.

So...I sensed an opportunity to teach Ethan about pop music. This morning I related this tale to him, so that he would be intrigued enough to want to hear Three Dog Night's "Joy To The World," one of the greatest pop songs of all time. I related the story of how the band got their name, and that last night was like a three-dog-night for him. He seemed to like the comparison, actually understood what I was trying to get across, and when we came downstairs for breakfast, on went the youtube clip.

"Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was a good friend of mine...," and he was hooked. He's bopping his head back and forth and dancing in his seat in a way that only a six-year old boy would think was cool. He loved it.

He listened to the whole song, I got my pop culture education dose in for the day, and all was good.

Until Claire said very sternly and somewhat loudly..."I hate that. I never want to hear that AGAIN."

50% ain't bad, is it?

Next up: I just discovered that the woman who plays the mom on Claire's new favorite show (Sonny With A Chance) is Nancy McKeon, the actress who played Jo on The Facts of Life. I see an opportunity...