Spent the day with the boy at Scout Camp yesterday. It was virtually identical to last year, allowing for the usual sorts of modifications camps make in an effort to improve the experience year-to-year. All that by way of saying, the boy and I had a lot of fun.
The boy had the better of it though, as my day consisted of “herding cats.” Actually, to be fair, the boys weren’t as bad as that. Though the extra year does make for a bit of a different challenge. They’re all less googly-eyed in the presence of adults, a bit more standoffish when they’re tired. To make it through, a little more patience and finesse is required including “letting things go” that an adult might otherwise not.
As for specifics, the boy had an interesting day. Starting at the beginning, archery, he hit the foam wrapper on the stand for the target. Twice. It wasn’t anywhere near a bullseye, but all the other kids were marveling at the feat, unintentional though it was. After that we moved on to BB’s where he had the second-highest score in the den and hit 2 bullseyes out of 8 shots. Finally, at fishing he was the only one in the den to catch a fish. It was a tiny blue gill that the boy quite literally plucked out of the water near the shore. It was so small that one of the other den leaders decided it would be more entertaining to use the fish as bait to try and catch a big fish. No such luck ultimately, but we didn’t have to worry about re-baiting his hook.
He also learned how to tie a square knot and a Bowline knot. The latter took most of the hour session to figure out. Mainly because the Scout who taught the class had to work with each kid individually and it takes quite a few iterations to finally figure it out. It took me awhile as well because it wasn’t obvious, while watching him tie the knot, that the loop the knot starts with isn’t the loop the knot ends with. Once the boy learned it he retained it, as evidenced by his demonstrating how to tie it to the Wife later.
Of all the changes to the format, the biggest is the extra hour added to the day. I was pretty sure some kind of brawl would break out between the kids just based on general fatigue levels from hoofing around the camp all day. Fortunately, nothing of the sort materialized, though it was touch-and-go during their soccer game at the end. The activity leader their didn’t exactly regale himself in leadership skills as he basically sat and watched the boys argue over various rules about the game.
Today is “Crazy Hair Day” at the camp, and the Wife spiked his hair for the occasion. He thought he looked stupid, but the Wife and I thought it looked good on him. It was too bad the Wife didn’t have any colored hair spray since he’d have made an awesome punk rocker.
I told the boy that it’s also “Hump Day”, since after today the week will be past half-way over. Even though he’s enjoying the camp, he confessed it wasn’t as much fun this year as last year. I told him it was probably just because it wasn’t all new. It certainly wasn’t for lack of friends. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I also suspect part of it is because I can’t spend the entire week with him at the camp like I did last year, though he hasn’t said anything to that effect. My only evidence is a Father’s intuition. Whatever the reason, I think part of him is looking forward to having his own time again come Friday.