The Children Give Me Homework

Today for the second week in a row I taught Children's Church at my local church. I promised the boys & girls last week that I would bring a puppet character that they hadn't met before. I have used Schnozz at the local library but not at church.

Schnozz is a black puppet kind of on the design of Elmo but he has ping pong ball size eyes with a large pupil in the center of them. He also has a pair of short green antennae on the top of his head. He's dressed in a light green shirt with a tropical print. His name comes from the big bright pink egg-sized nose in the middle of his face. He's quite an unusual looking character.

Now I had created a history for Schnozz. I decided that he was from an island in the South Pacific near French Polynesia. The island is called "Proboscus." He loves the beach and I even made up a greeting for him in the language of Proboscus. The greeting is "Ibida Yoctabay nick nick." It means "The bigger your nose the better you smell."

Anyway I took that background story and used it at the library the first time I used Schnozz. At church this morning when I brought Schnozz out to help the children review the lesson they were taught I used the same background information as part of Schnozz's introduction.

I got something I wasn't quite ready for. The children liked Schnozz so much they started asking lots of questions about him. Like what does he do on his islandand what just exactly what kind of creature is he? Of course I didn't have answers for those questions because I never thought about them.

I promised the children that I would bring Schnozz back again so I guess that means I've got some homework to do. I have to give Schnozz a complete personal history. That includes actually deciding just exactly what kind of creature he really is and how did he come to live with me.

That's the way it is with children you can never be fully prepared. Thanks kids for showing me what I needed to do to make Schnozz a complete character.