Scouts

Ben has joined the ranks of Webelos. He's coming into it a bit late in the game as a 5th grader but is busy making up time and learning the ropes. He is highly motivated by the fact that he's in the same den as his good buddy Dan and Dan's dad is the den leader. (That's Dan there right up front - he's an official part of the family and a sometime resident of our house.) Dan's mom is Mrs. Scout - she knows everything there is to know and I've kept her busy with my millions of mundane questions which she has graciously answered. Last month we attended Ben's very first Blue and Gold banquet which was the first event to require his Dress Uniform. Getting myself in gear to get that together was a bit of a challenge. The shirt is a hand me down from Dan's brother who abandoned scouts a few years ago in lieu of various other pursuits - I am a bit thankful for his loss of interest! I did my best to get the requisite patches and accessories in the right place but some things I was just too woefully inexperienced to manage correctly. If you look closely you will notice that the slider on the neckerchief is upside down (we didn't notice until the end of the banquet) and the whole neckerchief thingy wasn't quite put on there correctly. In the process of ironing on the various patches, I burned the number "8". I might be needing a new one of those...(Mrs. Scout to the rescue?) None of this seemed to faze Benjamin. He was still feeling quite smart in his uniform. The best part had to be Betsy's reaction. We got Ben all put together and standing for inspection when Betsy came bounding into the kitchen. She saw Ben, stopped dead in her tracks and my daughter swooned. "Oh Ben!" she announced, "You are so handsome!" She's definitely going to need to find a man in a uniform to marry...

John Michael was also quite smitten with the whole thing and he managed to weasel himself a seat in the car and a place at the banquet. I think I'm going to have learn this scout thing pretty quickly. JM and David only have a couple more years before they can become Tiger scouts...And if you make JM and David Tiger scouts, they're going to need a Den Mother to go with it.