Joining the pack

Tonight was my first Pack Meeting ever. If you are like me (or rather, like I was three weeks ago), you wouldn’t know a pack meeting from a pep rally. (Having six sisters and three daughters might do that to you.) But watch out, world of Scouting--Here I am—Assistant Den Mother Extraordinaire. Ghastly pale yellow shirt and all.

I am in charge of the Bears, which I now understand to mean extremely energetic nine- and ten-year-old boys who should never be allowed to take off their shoes during any scout gathering. After my bishop gave me this assignment, and after I had picked my jaw up off the floor, Mark’s first words to me (raised eyebrows don’t technically count) were “I’m so jealous.” YEAH RIGHT!!! They were actually “Don’t you dare wear the ugly yellow shirt.” If he had known better he would have said, “Don’t you dare buy that ugly yellow shirt for $40 even though that’s the cheapest you can find one for.”

I wish the BSA would at least give us a complimentary box of girl scout cookies for the purchase of our mandatory yellow shirts. Or maybe I can sell GS cookies to pay for my uniform. And while we’re talking about moolah, I learned tonight that I am allotted twenty-five cents per boy per week for our lesson and treats. According to my calculations, each boy will get 1/3 of one girl scout cookie each week on this budget. It’s gonna be slim pickings, children.

But I digress. It’s just so easy to get carried away in this strange world of BSA. Tonight at the Pack Meeting… (am I using my articles right? Do I need to say ‘the’ in front of Pack Meeting? Do I need to capitalize Pack or Meeting or Denmother/Den Mother?)…the Scoutmaster introduced a series of "Olympic games" for the kids. And tonight the “pack” included my own excited little Sage. She looked like a little waif out there with all those blue-shirt-and-crazy-bandana-clad scouts. But last week when Scouts was at our house, Sage was totally fascinated with them. She sat on the sidelines and piped up whenever she felt brave enough.

The first Olympic game was a physical fitness relay. I admit I couldn’t focus on my bears since I was worried about Sage. She made it through the bear walk just fine, and faked some seriously tragic pushups (involving bum action only), but the crab walk across the entire gymnasium proved too much for her little underexercised legs. She ran to me, with tears running down her face, and through her sobs I could hear “That was not fun. That was too hard.”

I tried to calm Sage down and was eventually able to shoo her back into the line of kids waiting to shoot a Nerf gun at a target. At that moment I was having all kinds of misgivings about my parenting, and about my calling to the scouting program. And suddenly I noticed that one of the older scouts had made his way over to Sage and was talking to her kindly. Then a short scout reached out and patted Sage on the back. And a few minutes later she was talking animatedly about the target made out of a vacuum box with her neighbor.

And then I realized that I need Scouting. I don’t need the pale yellow shirt, but I’m willing to accept it, along with all the lessons my family and I have to learn from this BSA adventure.

Until next time...Be prepared. Or whatever.

Also, I cannot resist slipping this in.

Mark, 1990

Sometimes I'm mean

Sometimes I'm mean, and I go for the camera before the solution.

Like when Lily got a ring pop base jammed in her mouth. [Don't worry--I made sure she was breathing, and it definitely wasn't going down the chute.  It was just wedged in there.]

Nobody ever died from ingesting dandelion, right?

 

Or dafodill?

Or toe jam?

 

 

I hope my posterity will thank me for it someday.  Maybe when all their therapy bills are paid off. 

"Put down that camera and help me!"

The Blues

Just call me the Grinch. Or Scrooge. Or meanie (if you're 5 or under and live at my house).

It all started with me taking down the Christmas lights in the girls' bedroom.

And then continued with me breaking up the rousing game of ornament-golf when I found Sage and Eliza teeing off down the stairs (and calling it baseball).

And the last straw was me making zucchini casserole for dinner. I tell you, I practically had mutiny on my hands tonight when Mark got home.

If the truth be known, I'm a little grumpy, too. I hate taking down Christmas decorations. And delightful art projects. I hate life going back to "normal" after the holidays. I love Christmas lights and music and my snowflake luminaries and olive wood. I love not needing a good excuse to drop off treats to neighbors whose names I can't remember.

(And I love caramels and fudge. And I don't love treadmills, but I am going to learn to love mine this month with Discipline 501.)

Sage just came in and threw up zucchini casserole. I guess the joke's on me. It's settled--the tree is staying up until Three Kings Day. Because if I have to be up during the night to do laundry, I definitely deserve to walk by a beautiful tree.

Goals galore

‘Tis the season for making goals. Back in early December, before plates of delicious goodies began appearing at our doorstep, Mark and I decided to set some general goals to keep treats to a minimum. We were feeling confident in our ability to resist overcooked gingerbread cookies and divinity and cherry chocolates, so we set the goal to “be moderate” in our treat eating. A few weeks later, after neighbor treats started pouring in and cranking up my blood sugar levels, we had to opt for a more specific goal: “Do not get a Costco membership in order to buy butter and sugar in bulk.” But once we succumbed and bought our first candy thermometer, it all went downhill from there.

Interestingly enough, we were asked to speak in church on goals. Mark and I have a super long history with making goals. In 2007 there was Comprehensive Health Reform. In 2008 there was Pregnancy for me, which meant that if anyone tried to tell me to eat veggies they would get locked out of the house. This last year Mark outdid himself with new spreadsheets every couple of weeks which were entitled “Discipline 101” (then 102, 201, 202, all the way until 401/402: The Senior Year, after which, apparently, we were supposed to graduate, but unfortunately I still never went to bed at 10:30, so I think I flunked out).

Naturally, Mark and I love New Year’s Resolutions. In case you are a New Year’s Scrooge/Grinch (aka Goal Hater), think about this quote, which sums up my perspective. "Goals lend purpose and direction to our living. They excite imagination and stir interest, and they generate a strength of anticipation which can rally all the powers of one's soul." (source)

And speaking of exciting the imagination, I don’t think I have ever heard of more imaginative goals than those of my youngest sister, Heather. Her goals are legendary in our family.

When Hez was in 2^nd grade, her class made headbands out of yarn for their Thanksgiving presentation. Following the program for which the headbands were intended, Heather decided she would make a goal to never take off her bright purple headband. And she didn’t. The days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into a few months. Our family was shocked at the resolve of this 8-year-old, and a little uncomfortable with the state of the purple headband, which didn’t come off, even in the shower! Finally some months later, we were able to convince her to swap her headband for a necklace. (And when I say we, I mean “I,” but when Heather and I were talking about this last week she told me that I represented Satan in this example. That’s why I said “we”—so I could share the blame a little...And since she called me Satan, click here to see a picture of her loom.)

With the abandonment of her purple headband goal, Heather decided to fill the void with a new goal: no eating cheese. Just so you know, in addition to buying sugar and butter in bulk, my family always buys cheese in bulk. This goal lasted just a weekend (thankfully).

When my dad brought us all home little prayer rugs from Turkey, Heather made a goal to pray on it every night. And with a very few exceptions, she kept this goal for THIRTEEN years and is still going. (I think her prayer rug should have a passport for all the places it has been.) It was certainly not surprising to me to find that three years ago Heather made a goal to read her scriptures every day and she’s still going strong.

So what I’m trying to say is, I think goal-making runs in my blood. Goals excite and inspire me. And maybe, someday, I will get to bed by 10:30 at least two times in a row. And that might be the day I change my blog name to Nine o’clock Musings and knit myself a purple headband (with Heather’s help, of course), and perhaps even celebrate with some treats. Unless that’s against Discipline 501. In which case I will probably have to eat two veggies before eating the treat.