Barney, of all people.

I should NOT have to feel this much gratitude toward everyone's least favorite purple dinosaur. (Although, as many a parent has noted through the years, he's not that bad. His "Clean up" and "Wash Hands" songs are teaching America's kids decent values at least.) But last night he went above and beyond.

See, Comcastic Digital Cable has this wonderous thing called On Demand, meaning AJ can have his Barney fix whenever he wants. Have I told you how he knows which buttons to push, in the correct sequence? And can even look up at the menu and say, "B for Barney," so he knows he's on the right item. (I told him "B for Barney," he didn't just figure that out. But he remembers it.) Pretty impressive right there, and I have to thank the umbrella category of my cable provider before I get down to Barney. My child is learning to read ...the TV menu screen. I'll take it, it's READING. :)

Last night the Barney episode we chose included a song we'd not heard before. A slow one, sung on the astro-turf playground, of course, but this time, it was twilight. (I don't know what these kids' parents were thinking, letting their kids play pretend at the schoolyard at 7:00 pm -- hello, anyone read Little Children?? -- but that's not the point.) Hannah and Linda and Robert and Danny -- and BJ, godhelp his irritating nasal voice -- all joined in to sing, "Listen to the Nighttime," and it was... well... sweet. And since I somehow got caught up in the crickets and fireflies and sat there with AJ, I told him, "It's fun to listen to the nighttime; maybe WE can do that after dinner."

And so we did. Just at dusk, we went onto the back deck and listened to... well, mostly nothing, as there didn't seem to be any audible bugs or frogs out. We heard a bird or two, and then some BATS! flew over, and we definitely heard the neighbor's BARKY DOG -- but again, the POINT was that AJ was all whispers and wonder. He sat hugging my neck (because he's a little bit "scary of" being out there in the dark), and asked me quietly "did loo hear dat?" and even DH came out with us... and it was just magic.

So thank you, HIT entertainment, for composing the little song that inspired us. And you too, Barney. I mean it.