6 Months on the Inside

A couple of weeks ago our scout pack had its Blue and Gold dinner.  It's a time for recognizing the achievements of the boys with various cub scout awards as well as a rite of passage for the older children.  For the boy and me, it marked the sixth month battle of wills between his "I don't wanna go to Scouts" and my "It'll be good for you."   I still believe it is good for him, much better than these other activities anyway, and while I still haven't been able to convince him scouting is more fun that staying home and watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine for the 18th time, he is starting to enjoy all the cool things we do.

One of the first trips the boys took was to the local college radio station.  As a former student of this very radio program, I was looking forward to checking out the new sound room and the possibility of being able to mess with all the sliders and knobs.

 Unfortunately, I was on diaper duty that night and wasn't able to go.  From what the wife told me, I missed my chance to make farting noises on live air.  Maybe next time.

My boy is the one demonstrating how to NOT catch a pass.

One of his favorite trips was our outing to (yet another) local college for our sports requirement.  The boys learned how to shoot some hoops.

When you're not much taller than four foot, "shooting hoops" usually consists of seeing how high you can throw the ball into the air and then running out of the way before it falls on your head.

I was impressed with how much he enjoyed this activity, considering that when I paid thirty dollars to sign him up for basketball classes he showed no interest at all.  Let this be a lesson to you parents out there:  Skip the $30 class, purchase a $10 basketball, and take your kid to the park.  On the way home, buy $20 worth of bacon.

 Before anybody got a bloody nose, the boys were moved from the gym to the rock-climbing wall.  Here they were able to test feats of strength.  Not their strength, but the strength of the parents that had to support their tiny frames as they scurried up the wall.

This wouldn't have been so bad on the old man's body if it wasn't for the fact that my son decided he had to touch every single rock on that wall.  There was no "One and done" for my little scout.  He must have climbed every inch of that forty-foot long wall, because every inch of my six-foot three frame felt it the following morning.

 A few weeks later, we took the boys to go watch a basketball game.  This was one of those moments I was the most proud of my son.  He didn't have to do anything other than sit there and watch the game.

For the first half, he sat next to me, quietly, not paying any attention to the other boys.  Then, suddenly, he asked if he could go play with the other kids. 

My son, the perfectly-fine-all-by-himself introvert wanted to hang out with the other boys.  I was so proud, I didn't care if he watched the game.  At the time, I wouldn't have cared if he set something on fire.  At least he would have been raising hell with other kids.  And this brings me back to our Blue and Gold dinner.

When it came time to hand out cub scout awards, I was surprised to hear my son's name called.  As he made his way up front to receive his award, the speaker announced that the award was for those scouts that had "Come out of their shells and opened up to the group."  He won this award on the same night that he was too shy to perform in a little skit the tiger cubs put together.  He may not be out of that shell entirely, but at least he's out of his cell.





Special thanks to Diana Herman for the scout photos!