Scouts for All!

This Saturday, we had Bean’s Pinewood Derby Race with Cub Scouts.  It’s an annual event that all the boys love.  They get a wooden block and some wheels in a little box and that’s about it.  What they do with the derby car is up to them.  There is a weight requirement and a few other restrictions on building, but other than that, the sky’s the limit.

Bean and Chris worked every night last week in the garage on his derby car.  They sanded it down to make it more aerodynamic.  They added weights to give it some traction and speed.  They shaped it into a sleek car shape.  And, of course, they painted it like Batman.  Obbbbbbbviously.

On race day, Bean was ready to go!  Turns out, so were almost all of the Scouts in our pack.  It was a great showing, the weather couldn’t have been better, and everyone was ready to race.

This is my little den of Wolves (2nd graders).  They are a ball of fire, but such fun to hang out with.  Full of personality and energy and each of them bring their own unique spark to our little group of hooligans.  They are the reason I’m so glad Bean is in Cub Scouts.

It was a great way to spend our morning together as a family.  Even Gracie had a blast.

Although, Gracie was so excited about her own Scouts meeting later that day.  We have been in Daisy Scouts for Gracie all this school year, but we have been completely underwhelmed with our troop.  I don’t like to knock any kind of volunteer leaders because God knows they are stepping up so that I don’t have to, but Gracie’s leader wasn’t so big on leading as she was on the IDEA of leading.  In the entire school year, we had only met twice.  And even that wouldn’t have really been that big of a deal, except that Gracie is so involved in Cub Scouts that she was really disappointed that her own Daisy experience wasn’t the same as Bean’s.

I mentioned this to my mom a few months ago, and shared how disappointed we were in our Girl Scout experience so far.  “I would step up and start my own troop,” I said, “But I don’t think I’d do any better than our current troop leader because of my schedule.”

“Well,” said my mom, “Why don’t I do it?”

And so for the past two months, my mom has thrown herself into learning how to be a Daisy Scout Leader.  She registered for her own little troop, reserved a room at our church for meetings twice a month, went to the Girl Scout store and spent my inheritance on things like Girl Scout hair bows and cupcake liners, and she has scoured Pinterest for every Daisy pin ever published.  Our first meeting was this last Saturday and Nana was READY. TO. GO.

We had a small little turn out of Gracie own friends, which is what we expected since we are starting in the middle of the school year, but the girls didn’t care at all!  They were so excited and had such a good time!

What Chris and I love so much about Scouting is the experience it brings to our family.  We cheer for each other, we help each other, we support each other, we play with each other.  Some of our favorite times as a family have been with Scouts.  And I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that Gracie is going to have the same family experience with Daisies.

I’m big on independence for our kids.  We like for them to have experiences and adventures away from us because it builds character and confidence when they are able to push through something and accomplish a task by themselves.  Independence is a big priority in our family.  But Scouting has showed us the value of succeeding and accomplishing together, and it has made our family close and stronger because of it.

And, you know, there’s the cookies…