So I'm hanging with my 2.5 year old son, Jackson, the other night, and I'm wearing my Beavis and Butthead Do America t-shirt. And he points at the huge Butthead on the left and asks me, "What that?"

"Butthead," I reply.

Then he points to the huge Beavis on the right and asks, "What that?"

"Beavis."

Then, for the next two minutes, back and forth, over and over:

"What that?"

"Butthead."

"What that?"

"Beavis."

And all the while, I'm thinking two concurrent thoughts: (1), how cool it is to be teaching my son to identify Beavis and Butthead, and (2) how very strange and un-fatherlike of me it is to be teaching my son to identify Beavis and Butthead.

* * *

Continuing on with the "things that toddlers probably shouldn't be exposed to" front, I've been on a real Avenged Sevenfold kick lately. The incendiary guitar, locomotive drums and soaring harmonies on songs like "Beast and the Harlot" are like a defibrillator for my soul, shocking away 20+ years of growing up and leaving me feeling like I'm 17 years old all over again.

Which is great and all, but not so much what I want to play when driving my son somewhere. So, on our way out this evening, I grabbed what I thought was one of his favorite CDs, aptly titled Children's Favorite Songs. But when I got in the car and ejected Avenged Sevenfold's City of Evil disc and tried to play it, I discovered it was actually the DVD of Children's Favorite Songs, not the CD, and thus would not play.

For a second or two, I toyed with the notion of popping Avenged Sevenfold back in. But it just didn't seem right. So I flipped through the other CDs in the car and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Johnny Mathis's 1958 classic, Merry Christmas.

I think Jackson's early exposure to one of the greatest Christmas albums of all time, as we drove to and from the Little Gym this evening, just might counterbalance the Beavis and Butthead.