Scouting for a new hobby

I did it, I took the plunge. I may regret it, especially come camping time, but Mark is now officially a Cub Scout.

We signed up at a parent's meeting on Wednesday night, and attended our first pack meeting last night, where Mark was most excited when the pack leader announced there were snacks afterwards.

I thought the whole uniform idea might be a show stopper--Mark really hates wearing one to school. Before I handed over any registration fees, I explained that if he joined, he had to suck it up about the uniform.

"I can just wear a different hat," he told me, watching a couple Scouts run past us.

"No, you can't. The uniform is the SAME for every kid--including the hat."

"Well, I can wear a different--"

I stopped him. "No, you can't! You wear what the other kids wear. Or you don't join."

He thought about it for a minute, looked at the boys chasing each other around, laughing, and said, "Fine."

I shouldn't have worried. We bought the uniform today, and he had it on before we even left the parking lot. He was so proud of his new blue shirt with all the patches, and happy that the shorts hit his knees. He loved the neckerchief with the metal bear slide holding it in place, although he thought the bear looked more like a wolf. He even loved the hat, except when I insisted that Cub Scouts do not wear their hats backwards.

I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing. I'm more of a hotel kinda camper than a tent camper, and I really worry about camping with his diabetes. I worry that we'll camp somewhere cold, and his insulin will freeze, or somewhere with bears, and I won't have any sugar in the tent for those terrible nighttime lows. Or that we'll have some kind of medical emergency out in the middle of nowhere. I guess I shouldn't stress so much--a couple years ago, a guy with diabetes climbed Mt. Everest, and he survived (but I bet his mother was a nervous wreck the whole time!).

I also know he'll eventually want to go camping without me--but who will count his carbs, or check his blood sugar at night? Who will treat him if he's too low to treat himself? In the three years that I've had him, he's never spent a night away from me, unless it was at diabetes camp, where they checked his blood sugar constantly. I guess I'll do a lot more camping than I ever wanted to.

And I'm a little worried about all the adults wearing scout uniforms. I commend them for being actively involved in their child's hobby. But I'm afraid I will end up a den mother or something, in a similar uniform, and khaki is definitely NOT my color. I'm all for insisting that Mark wears his uniform, but I'm not much into the idea of one for myself...