OK, I haven’t had time to blog, so I thought I would just blog my #1 blogging pet peeve. You should never, under ANY circumstance blog about how you’ve not had time to blog. That is a waste of a blog post. If you have nothing blog about, then simply don’t blog. Better not to blog that waste precious Internet space with some lame pointless blog post about nothing. It’s a waste of your time and a waste of everyone else’s time to blog about how you have nothing to blog about.
Just thought I’d put that out there since I have nothing to blog about.
My four year old is destined to become a judge. He already has a keen sense of justice. Or at least a better sense of mercy than I do.
Yesterday I could not find my shoes. I had gone up and down the stairs and searched every room of the house at least three times. I was managing to keep my grumbling humorous so as to hide the real anger that was mounting inside because I had a four year old following me and offering to help me in my hunt. But the volume and frequency of my complaints were growing even as I kept them light hearted on the surface, since I had impressionable little eyes and ears watching me. But we were eager to out the door and the delay in finding these shoes was delaying us, and I was getting acutely frustrated. (A scene I hope is not limited to our home?)
The shoes that were acquitted
In the end, my shoes were found – in the first floor coat closet – with all daddy’s shoes, right where they belong, just under some other shoes.
As I went to couch to put them on, my little boy behind me, I was eager for an outlet for my bottled up anger, but still wanting to keep things light for my son, and so I found the “perfect” fun solution, and said to Luke, “Let’s spank the bad shoes for making us late” and proceeded to spank one of the shoes for all the frustration it had inflicted upon me for the past 15 minutes and invited my son to spank the other shoe before I put them on.
Then it happened.
My four year old put me to shame.
Luke simply went into an judicial statement such as a Supreme Court Justice would before handing down a judgement in the highest court of the land.
“Daddy, when you come home, and take off your shoes, you are supposed to take off your shoes and put them in the coat closet so they don’t get dirt on the floor and make a mess in the house. That is where the shoes go. So the shoes were in the right place. So they didn’t do anything wrong. So they don’t deserve a spanking. So I’m not going to spank that shoe and you shouldn’t be spanking that other one either.“
And I’m supposed to be the father here! Where did my son get this sense of justice? And for a SHOE? I must be doing something right! I was stunned, but proud.
I have had this framed poster hanging in my home or office for over TEN YEARS (I think much longer!) and have offered a cash reward for years to whoever was the first to “find the identical pen men” if only to solve it for me! I have starred at it and wasted much of my life wondering if it wasn’t a cruel joke.
And then tonight, I SOLVED IT!
I have used all kinds of systems. I have had post-it notes on it, going row by row. I have made photo copies and cut it up and tried sorting it. But I never finished any system. Then here, in my new house in Colorado, I hung it up in the restroom in the new Kidology office thinking there I might have more time to devote to this evil poster. (I know, TMI!) And today, I was in there patiently dealing with one of my Colorado bloody noses (I get those a lot here, part of my adapting to the altitude, and since I’m on blood thinning meds due to my heart episode, they take longer to stop… yeah, more TMI!) I was looking at this infernal poster and tried a new strategy…
If I was the artist, where would I put the two identical pen men?
and suddenly, I SAW THEM! Seriously! All these years of starring, and systems, and going row by row, and all I had to do was get into the mind of the artist, and WA-LA! I solved it!
So…. can YOU find the two identical Pen Men? You can click on the photo for a larger view. Don’t put the answer in the comments (moron) but send me the answer (row and number from the left) via e-mail me or private message via FB or DM via twitter and the first person to tell me I will mail you a prize! Seriously, I will! I PROMISE, and it will be a GOOD PRIZE! I’m very generous.
UPDATE: Congratulations to Justin Brooks! Many tried, but he is the only person to send the correct answer, so he got his choice of a prize and chose a free copy of the Kidology Handbook! (A $60 value!) and it is IN THE MAIL!
What is the Kidology Handbook? CLICK THIS TO FIND OUT:
It’s the craziest video I ever made! The “back story” is I spent all day on a promo video that I had to trash because of a table saw in the background that I didn’t hear until I went to edit! My webmaster left on vacation with the Kidology newsletter already cued and ready to go with a file name where I was to upload a video! So I had to head back to the Kidology headquarter after midnight to film… late, tired, wired on Dew, and desperate for a promo video… and this was the result! Turned out to be one of the best promo videos I’ve ever done. Last minute wackiness at its best! Order a Kidology Handbook Today. And just for reading this far, use the coupon code ‘penmen’ get $5 off your order, never expires! How’s that oh faithful blog readers! (Will work only on the handbook, once per e-mail address.)
You gotta love those ad lib moments that become memorable and meaningful! At a family advent event I was speaking at this month, my theme was the name Immanuel and the significance of “God with us.” My ever-present helper, Gus from ChildrensMinistryPodcast.com, suggested that maybe Mary and Joseph nickname Jesus “Baby Manny” – short for Immanuel. I’m not so sure about that – but the kids got a kick out of it.
Luke's Favorite Jesus - Because He's Dressed in Purple!
While I doubt “Baby Manny” will catch on as a name for the baby in the manger, isn’t it wonderful to be reminded that the awesome and powerful Creator of the universe desires to have a close and intimate, even familiar, relationship with us? I think the Almighty God, who once said we could call him Abba Father, or “Daddy,” wouldn’t mind his son being called “Baby Manny” if it endeared us to Him more.
This Christmas, don’t let the hustle and bustle of the season distract you from the Child who cries for your attention. After all, Baby Manny is the Reason for the Season! He is God with Us!
I rarely post something I got in an e-mail forward, but I loved this:
Here is the text of the e-mail: (source unknown)
I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down. First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by. Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn’t take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.
It was fun while it lasted
Hope you get a kick out of it too! I thought it was pretty creative, but can totally see why the poor guy had to take it down! It’s something I’d do but my wife would make me take it down long before the police would get a chance too! Merry Christmas!
The all new Kidology.org has just gone live, and we were having fun showing Luke the walk-out videos (linked below) and Sara was trying to explain to Luke that this website is Daddy’s job, and he just made a new website. Luke took one look at the web page and said, “Looks like a binkey.” At first we thought, “Huh?” but on a closer look, we could see what he was talking about:
I guess our logo does look a little like a binkey, after all!
We hope the new website will pacify many as they seek to reach and teach kids for Jesus!
June 9, 2009 at 1:50 pm · Filed under Humor, Politics
For those who are enjoying our new President’s transformation of America, (or those informed and concerned with the long term impact of what he is doing) I thought you’d enjoy a humorous look at what experts are predicting as the Obamamobile of the future!
GM’s New Signature Car!
“The new GM (Government Motors) proudly introduces the 2010 Obama! This car runs on hot air and broken promises. It has three wheels that speed the vehicle through nauseating left turns. It comes complete with two Teleprompters programmed to help the occupants talk their way out of any taxes. The transparent canopy reveals the naive smiles still on the faces of all the happy owners.” (shamelessly copied from an e-mail forward)
Hope you enjoyed the laugh. Don’t take it too seriously people, but do think seriously about the impact of one president spending more in 100 days than ALL previous presidents combined. You can’t blame that on your predecessor.
Perhaps you have had trouble with kids running at church, or at least, with grown-ups complaining that the kids are running too much! Well, I once made some fun signs that I posted around the church with some Bible verses instructing kids to “WALK” – granted, they were a little out of context, but it got some fun responses and got the topic of WALKING around the building into people’s minds:
So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you WALK?”
- Nehemiah 5:9
I am God Almighty, WALK before me!
- Genesis 17:1
Observe what the LORD your God requires: WALK.
- I Kings 2:3
I was cleaning out some old file draws at my office and came across these, and thought others might get a kick outta them. Please, don’t take it too seriously! It’s all in fun. Post on the walls of your church at your own risk!
By request via Facebook, I’m posting the family show I did at my church last weekend. A volunteer did the video from the back so the audio is the best, but you can hear the show fairly well. It was an after dinner show so unfortunately there is some ambient noise from the clean up going on back where the camera was, etc. but for what it’s worth, you’ll get to see Gus and some of my other puppets, including the scary baby routine, and some unique “Chapel only” humor as Gus picks on the whole multi-church format of our church a bit. This coming weekend our church is launching simulcast broadcasting so the opening routine with the magic drawing board has a little fun with that, to explain the context.
But with no further ado, here is the entire program in seven parts:
PART 1: Magic White Board Option for Multi-Site Churches
PART 2: Baby Fred and it Stinks to be a Baby
PART 3: Karl and Snowball
PART 4: Gus on Multi-Personality Churches, er Multi-Site
PART 5: Gus Invents WWID (What Would I Do?)
PART 6: The Gus Raps (Kids in the Word & Yo God!)
PART 7: Gus Becomes a Ventriloquist (and the Clean Room Rap)
Hope you enjoy the show! It was a fun evening and the kids seemed to respond really well. This was the first time since High School that I did an entire program with just puppets, but they had a magician last week and I thought it would be too similar to do a magic show, so I decided to do something different. Seems Baby Fred ended up being the most popular, surpassing even Gus in comments afterwards.
