Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Fly Like An Eagle

Well, we did it. Yesterday Bubba D spent two hours on his eagle project yesterday. (Threats and bribery work well!) He is going around to dental offices asking for donations for hygiene kits. Each kit has to have 4 toothbrushes, minimum of 100 hygiene kits to qualify.....ouch, you do the math!

I have been reflecting on the eagle scout this last 24 hours. Sorry to all you rah-rah scouters out there.. I live in the real world. Why is it that we procrastinate getting this done? Is it too painful to contemplate until we finally realize it is 6 months before the 18th birthday and we'd better get on the stick? Threatening to withhold the driver's license never worked for me....I WANTED them to drive so I didn't have to haul them around along with their siblings/friends.

I mean, on occasion I see a photo of the 14 yr old freckled face eagle scout in the paper, standing by his 10 thousand books that he has collected for an orphanage in Zimbabwe....what they don't show is his highly drugged mother being carted off to the funny farm in a straight jacket! I think that the Boy Scouts of America ought to award mothers of eagle scouts a trip to the spa or something! What is this with a pin for the mom??????


Eagle #1: What you don't see in this photo is his future wife in the audience! (He is the large, tall one in the middle-he's still large and tall and just passed the physical for our local police department..whoo hoo!)


Eagle #2: This Eagle is in the center bottom, trying to look studly.....it took him 5 (FIVE) times to do his application because they had changed over to electronic and it kept getting messed up and people "losing" the application. 4 of those 5 boys are on missions now-the first one left right after the awards ceremony!!!


Eagle #3: Ahhh, Eagle prospect #3 (the one being silly on the right). We have 4 more months until 18th birthday.........


Now, I know there are lots of advantages to having an eagle scout award, looks good on a resume, etc. etc. but the best one I heard yet was from a recent letter from Elder Steve:

"Tell Bubba D that having your eagle is great, especially when you get pulled over by a cop-just show him your eagle i.d. card and he probably won't give you a ticket!!" (sheeeesh)

6 comments:

Allyson said...

I was only in scouts (cub) for a year. It didn't take me very long to relize scouts is not all about the scout, its about the parents. When the boys get the arrow and the Webelo the mom gets a pin.

I think you should definately get a reward...I'm thinking cruise to Hawaii!

Nancy Face said...

Thanks for visiting my silly little blog and leaving a comment! OF COURSE you can have the award! :)

Well, you're gonna be hatin' this, but I'm one of those annoying mommas of 14 year old Eagle Scouts! My oldest son earned his a few days before his 14th birthday (that was his goal!) and my 12 year old is right on track to do the same, except he wants to beat big brother, haha! I like it this way because they are young enough to be truly excited about it!

Your family is beautiful! :D

jen said...

Hahaha Mom....we are soooooooooooooo not scouters around here. R never did get his eagle...not sure what we will say when young man L gets to that age. Oh well....lovin S's encouragement. HA!

Jillybean said...

I very much agree with the idea for a spa trip for the scout moms, although Allysons idea for a Hawaii trip sounds good too.
I also think we deserve something for getting the scout ready to go on the winter camp, (they really want you to bring 6 pairs of wool socks?)and then sending our scouts TO the winter camp even though the weather forecast is predicting the temperature to be around 0.
I've never understood how freezing could be fun.

angiedunn said...

this post makes me nervous & excited to someday give birth to boys. you deserve a day @ the spa sister...times three! so fun!

ps: my little brother eric has got out of many a speeding ticket using that trick...it really does work!

Randi said...

My son had every single thing done including the project - except 2 merit badges - when he was 14. Those 2 merit badges finally got finished up when he was 17 and 9 months.
Why? WHY?

I have no idea.