Things dads don't like to hear

These are the two things that dads don't like to hear.

1. On a road trip - "Are we there yet?"

2. On Halloween, after 10 minutes of trick-or-treating - "How much longer do we have to do this?"

NOTE: yes, my children have now said both.

Random thoughts on an otherwise dull day

1. Driving to and from work today, I couldn't help but notice how many political yard signs there are. Then I cast my mind back to autumn 2004 (a presidential election year) when we were shopping for a home. Do you know how difficult it is to drive around neighborhoods looking for houses for sale when you can't tell where the for sale signs are because they blend in to political yard signs? Well it's really hard, and there's nothing more disappointing than finding the "perfect house" only to realize it's not a ReMax home, but "Bozo for Congress".

2. On Saturday, we took the boys to Cosmic Golf (an indoor miniature golf place where everything's painted black and the only lights are blacklights). We knew that light colors, especially white, glow under the blacklights, but I discovered that so does snot. Liam had a runny, crusty nose. Not only could you see his crusty upper lip from across the room, but my shoulders where he had wiped his nose. Nice.

3. Six-year olds don't understand the new energy bill passed this year. Eli woke up shortly before 6am this morning and said he was wide awake. I told him he needed to try to go back to sleep, but he couldn't. I tried explaining the concept of daylight savings time, but resorted to just saying that the sun played a trick on us and that the clock hasn't caught up yet.

4. The Dixie Chicks are sort-of bitter. After waiting four months for our turn for the new CD at the library, my number finally came up and my hold was available. While most of the songs sound like the Dixie Chicks I'm used to, listening to the lyrics tells me they are angry, angry women. At least they're making money working out their frustrations. The CD's good, though.

5. Just so you know, I'm planning on exploiting my two-year old tomorrow night (Halloween). Yes, I plan on sending him up to doors to ask for candy. There's no reason he can't bring in his share of loot. I will not, however, permit him to eat very much (cavities and what-not). That's what dads are for.

Purple Cows and Chicken Poop

No, I haven't quit my job and bought a farm. You might remember a recent post where I described a marketing book I read and really got into called Purple Cow. The book is about making a product remarkable. Seth Godin says we have now moved into an era where markets are largely satisfied, and to be noticed, a product and its marketing need to be remarkable to be seen at all, let alone to sell.

Now for the poop part. I was traveling the past few days and came across a product made here in Kansas called Chicken Poop (no, it does NOT contain chicken poop). It's a chapstick, and it is...a purple cow. I bought a tube ($2.49 at Walgreens..about 2.5 times more than I usually pay for chapstick). Chapstick is chapstick in my book, but being a marketer, I've gotta say they seem to have done something right here. You have to admit the name alone does the trick. It got your attention, didn't it? The inspiration for the name came from something the creator's grandpa once told her when she complained about chapped lips. "If you've got chapped lips, put some chicken poop on them and you won't lick them." Someone should have told Napoleon Dynamite about Chicken Poop (remember when he called his brother from school to ask if he could bring him some chapstick because his lips "hurt real bad.")

The packaging is very plain (white tube with black writing), and tubes are "dispensed" out of the back side of a chicken-shaped display box, exactly where you'd expect a product with such a name to be found.

Here's the website: www.ilovechickenpoop.com

Bad Blood

We were at a park this evening where we were going to have family pictures taken by a friend. We were standing with the boys while our friend was talking to someone when all of a sudden a two men came running out of a building. Just at that moment, five or six guys came galloping up on horseback and shot them both several times. No kidding. The two men went flying and landed on the ground while we stared wide-eyed wondering what to tell the boys who had just witnessed these two men get shot.

Oh yea, I guess I should mention that the place our friend had taken us was being used tonight (unbeknownst to us) as a movie set by the local public television station which is filming a movie called Bad Blood about the Kansas-Missouri border war back around the civil war. We told the boys that they were making a movie and that's why there were lots of people dressed in pioneer clothing and riding around on horseback. We really were shocked when we heard someone yell "action" only to witness a "double homicide", civil war style. I told the boys right away that it was just pretend and that no one got hurt, that it was for a movie. It was still kind of weird, though, seeing someone get "shot" right before your eyes. Especially when they did the scene another three or four times.

I suggested we ask if we could borrow costumes so our family pictures looked like the antique photos you can have taken at amusement parks, but Jenny wouldn't go for it. You can check out the website for the movie at http://www.kcpt.org/badblood .

Fill in the blank

Tonight's topic for Family Home Evening: Baptism

While describing the baptism of Christ, I recited the story very slowly, leading the boys to fill in the blanks. "...after coming out of the water, the heavens parted and the Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a ___?" Eli shouts out his answer - "Tornado!"

Can you tell he lives in Kansas?

Single Parent Productivity

Jenny was away yesterday and today at Time Out for Women in St. Louis. That meant I was on my own with the boys. Although I know it has to be much harder to juggle them day in and day out on her own as Jenny does, I got a lot done (but can't say I didn't realize again how easy I have it). In the past 36 hours, I managed to:

1. Keep everyone relatively happy, safe, and fed (corn dogs, pancakes, and chicken nuggets).
2. Keep track of the boys in Hollywood Video while I searched for videos to watch last night (Curious George and the second Work and the Glory). I also managed to schmooze the manager into letting me use TWO coupons for free movies. The coupons state only one coupon per visit, and Jenny "but that's against the rules" S. never lets us try it. With her out of the picture, I figured what could it hurt. I think me being really nice and having three kids in-tow did the trick.
3. Went to the grocery store and the boys reminded me they hand out free cookies at the bakery. We parked between the grocery store and the video store and walked the distance to each so I'd only have to get them in and out of the car once.
4. Slept-in until 9am! Eli and Nathan had a "campout" in my room last night, sleeping on the floor in their sleeping bags.
5. Made two trips to Home Depot. I was going to go to Ace Hardware for the second trip, but the Knights of Columbus were in front asking for donations in exchange for Tootsie Rolls, so I opted for Home Depot instead. Although I don't have anything against donating (I spent countless hours standing with my dad collecting for the Knights of Columbus as a kid), I didn't have change and didn't feel like hearing "but Dad, he said we could have candy..." while looking for outlet boxes and caulk.
6. FINALLY finished two projects at home as a surprise for Jenny. A year and a half ago the light above the kitchen sink started dripping during a rainstorm. For about a year, I had a piece of cardboard tacked up after I took out the rotted sheetrock. Got that replaced in May, but never got around to putting up a new light. Done. Also in May we re-did the bathroom, but I never caulked the tub or the new toilet. Done.
7. Took the boys to the library to pick out books and DVDs.
8. Liam's hair has looked like something out of That 70's Show for sometime, and Jenny and I decided that we would take him to Great Clips for a $5.99 haircut. You see, the Staggs boys don't usually go out for haircuts, not when there's Daddy's Haircut Store in the garage. I've cut my own hair for the last three years (now that there's less of it to cut) and I also cut Eli and Nathan's hair. I haven't wanted to try Liam's for fear that he'd squirm, but tonight I finally reached the point of not wanting to look at it anymore. So, he got MY $5.99 special. They hate Daddy's Haircut Store, although I usually try to dig out some obscure toy that they've forgotten about and say "Look what you get for being a valued customer! Isn't this better than a sucker?", followed by groans. Jenny still hasn't made an appointment.

So, that was my day and a half as a single parent.

Liam: before (last Saturday) and after (tonight)

Kitchen sink light and completed bathroom

"The Winners"

"The Pumpkin Pickers"

Daddy Stew

We've all seen the cartoons where well-intentioned anthropologists or Bugs Bunny are captured by the natives, hungry natives, and put on to boil for a delicious stew. We'll tonight I came close to living it. Taking an innocent Sunday nap on the couch while Jenny sat just a few feet away chatting with her parents on the phone, I awoke to the delicious aroma of dill and mint. Liam had helped himself to the spices left on the counter from tonight's not-so-successful attempt at gyros and was sprinkling me from head to toe with spices. Guess the turkey sandwich he had for dinner didn't quite fill him up. Alarmed, I asked Jenny if she happened to notice what was going on. Nope, I had to tell her what had just taken place.

In other news, Eli, Nathan and I ran the Kids Klassic Fun Run yesterday. Jenny stole my rights to blogging about it, so I guess you'll have to read her blog for more details. One thing she didn't mention was that the day before the race, Eli said "Dad, I sure hope we're the only ones in the race so we can win." Guess he's heard my Chief Joseph Run story one too many times (he must think the only way to win is to enter a race where you're the only contestant in your age category.)

blogging by the numbers

From today's USA Today:

Since March 2004, the "blogosphere" has doubled in size every five to seven months. There now are more than 53 million blogs.

Key blog statistics:
150,000 - The number of blogs created each day, or nearly two blogs per second.
1.6 million - The number of daily postings, or more than 66,600 per hour.
39% of the blogs were in English.
31% of the blogs were in Japanese.
12% of the blogs were in Chinese.
2% of the blogs were in Spanish.
40% of those who start a blog are still posting on it three months later. (that means 60% are duds)

Lace up the running shoes

Eli and I are running in a fun run together this Saturday. Given the choice of doing the 5K, the 2-mile, or the 1/2 mile, Eli chose the 1/2 mile. Good choice! And despite what you might be thinking, we had planned on doing the race PRIOR to this weekend's run-in with 4 dozen delicious cookies. Wish us luck.

Where'd all the cookies go?

One of my snacking habits is to eat handfulls of semi-sweet chocolate chips if there are some in the cupboard (semi-sweet chocolate is good for the heart). Last night, I went there and asked Jenny if it was ok if I just finished off the bag that was there so I wouldn't be tempted by them anymore. There was about a cup and a half left and I figured it was better to just knock them off and be done with them. She said she was going to use them to make a batch of Cowboy Cookies, but it was up to me...cookies or chocolate chips. I said ok and that it was probably better that she made cookies with them than me pig out and eat a half a bag of chips. Huh? That doesn't make much sense in retrospect.


So, today Jenny made a batch of Cowboy Cookies...four dozen to be exact. That's 48 cookies if you don't know how many four dozen is. I'm ashamed to say that there are...eight...eight cookies left now, just six hours after she turned off the oven. WE ATE 40 COOKIES between the five of us. I'm sure I ate about 20 of them. I feel miserable now, and realize that I've just added a couple of hours to my treadmill requirements this week. But at least I didn't eat half a bag of chocolate chips all by myself, eh? By the way, here's the recipe for the yummiest cookies you'll ever eat:


Cowboy Cookies
1 cup each of shortening, sugar, brown sugar, oatmeal, coconut, and Rice Crispies cereal
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon each of vanilla, salt, soda, baking powder
2 cups flour
nuts or chocolate chips

Mix everything together and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Makes four dozen. Serves five Staggs, or 24 normal people.