Laundry!?! I had the boys bring their laundry to the washer and dryer and I found moldy clothes! Yuck! "Which one of you stuffed wet clothes at the bottom of the hamper and left them there for two weeks?" I hollered. IJ, always a smart-aleck, found his detective hat and magnifying glass to solve the mystery. He determined the wettest thing in the hamper was the item that got everything else wet, and therefore moldy. The owner of the wet item was the guilty party. "It was me," he said.
While the shirts and vests and pants and other boy fashion items were washing, I decided that this was a good time to gather up all the patches they had earned. Or not. I lined up a huge, obnoxious pile of segments and asked IJ what he did to earn them. "I don't know. Well, this one looks like someone lifting weights. I don't lift weights though. What is this chef hat for? I don't know. This one is for hiking. That one I remember." S had three: one for hiking, one for participating in Veteran's Day, and one for selling popcorn. He only has three because I order the segments for the Wolves and they only get patches for important things they actually do. IJ's leader orders segments for every. single. activity. the den does, whether the scout is present or not.
The laundry came out of the dryer, along with a toy car and a library card. At least it wasn't a pocket full of nails this time! IJ has been building Christmas presents out in the carport again. He built me an airplane out of old Taekwondo boards that were broken at the last test. The Master gives the old boards to us for kindling, so M, IJ, and S get to have more fun breaking them up into smaller pieces with their punches and kicks.
So we get to Cub Scouts, the D family in all its uniformed splendor: two leaders, a Bear, a Wolf, and three tag-a-longs. IJ went off to join his group, while M and I juggled our three little guys and our six Wolves. Out of the six boys, at least two are diagnosed with ADHD. The rest should be, except S. He just sits there and gets lost in his own world; he should be diagnosed with plain ole ADD. As M said last night after we got home, being their leader is "like keeping frogs on methamphetamine in a wheel barrow." For the first half of the meeting, I acted like a sheep dog. I kept them at our table, told them to keep their uniforms on until the meeting is over, and to listen, listen, listen to Mr. D, all with Baby D on my hip. Then M took over D, and I ran a craft. Tuesday nights are when I am super-duper thankful I homeschool and my kids aren't in this crazy environment all day long. And I feel super-duper sorry for teachers for having to exist and function in this environment. And I feel sorry for all the little kids who do function well in a classroom environment, but can't because of the distractions boys like the Wolves create.
So today, Wednesday, I almost have to take a half day off, just to recover. And to help my boys recover. And to ponder the questions: Is being involved with this particular pack what we want for our boys? Is there something better out there? Because boys don't raise themselves very well.
