Scouts, Scouts and more Scouts

I feel like my life is being taken over by the Boy Scouts of America.  Today in church I was called to be our ward's cub master and Wolf or Bear den mother...or maybe both if they can't drum up another willing soul.  Luckily I get to keep teaching Sunday School which should insure my sanity to some extent.  Then John and Dunn left today for a week long high adventure Boy Scout summer camp.  I am left without a husband or chief babysitter.  Talk about trapped.

Chase has Cub Scout day camp Wed. through Saturday this week and Zach gets to go join the big boys Friday night and Saturday.

I am open to any and all suggestions and tips for how to make a ward cubbing program succeed.  In all my years as Primary President I have studiously avoided the cub scouts by pawning it off on a poor counselor (many thanks to Kari Young of MO, Elona Livingston of WA) or living in such a small ward that the program was outsourced to the community (YEAH!!!  This was perhaps the best thing about Pine Bluff, AR)

Sometimes when John encounters a patient he can just tell is going to be difficult, usually for psycho/social reasons--not medical, he tackles it by "going to the pain". (not the patient's; his own) Meaning he doesn't try to avoid or sidestep the issue by passing the buck or trying to minimize his contact with the actual patient.  He learned in residency that dancing around it or trying to shield himself from the ugliness more often than not just prolongs the agony.  He has taught himself to confront those situations head on and be an incredibly proactive patient advocate.  He has learned over the years that "going to the pain" most always results in lessening the overall flogginess* of the situation and even occasionally ends up being an emotionally gratifying and positive experience for both parties.

When I told John that the Bishop asked me to head up the cubbing program in our ward my sweet husband's sage advice was, "Go to the pain Babe". 

So tomorrow I'm heading out to buy one of those oh so fashionable yellow camp shirts and all the accompanying insignia.  I will then promptly drop it off to the wonderful Korean ladies who set up shop outside the gate of Ft. Leonard Wood and pay them handsomely to sew on all the patches.  It's a cop out I know but hey, there is only so much pain a person can abide...

* an unofficial derivative of the word flog.  To flog is of course to beat someone with a whip or stick as punishment or torture.  A flog (noun) is a resident's term for a situation that you cannot solve but must spend hours and hours working at usually at the end of a fifteen hour shift.