I love it when I'm reminded of what a nurturing and wonderful caregiver I am. =]

I was talking to Caleb tonight about how being a nursery leader in church is VERY trying for me at times. Short explanation...I am having some pretty severe withdrawal symptoms as a result of cold turkeying a prescription med. Anyhoo, I was telling him how we have a few screamers at the beginning of the class and I'll do almost anything to shut these little creatures up. Their crying slices thru my eardrums and then rolls through my brain on an electric storm. It truly sends me into what I call a neural overload and makes me panic.

Caleb then proceeded to tell me that it was a DANG good thing I wasn't involved in cub scouts anymore or I would probably be in jail. Now Honestly, the events of the story I'm about to tell you didn't make as much of an impact on me as it did on Caleb. Oh, he remembers it with great glee...

About 6 years ago I found myself running a particular activity at our annual Cub Scout Day Camp. I think I was just teaching them a few different games that pioneer children played. I enlisted the help of Caleb and Kolby that day and they were awesome! For most of the day we were having a great time, the boys were loving the games, were excited to learn, were just thriving on the running and the fresh air in their pink little lungs. We were doing several activities with several groups of boys circuit style. Each group of about 10 boys each would rotate through every half hour or so.

One particular group of boys showed up ready to go, and I could tell right away that this group was gonna be trouble. There WAS a ringleader. An ornery, disrespectful little dude who probably only REALLY needed the love and attention of his father...Well I was TRYING to be patient and have a sweet and Christ-like attitude as this kid became more and more disruptive, more and more obnoxious, more and more out of control. As I was explaining the rules of one of our games, he started acting out and began to be physically aggressive toward a few of his group-mates. Well, if you ask my kids how I would advise them to deal with a "bully" you'll find that "turning the other cheek" has never come up. I very cleverly and stealthily (or so I thought) made a subtle move and hip-checked that kid right on his @$$. Then I proceeded to act so surprised, picked him up, brushed him off, asked him if he tripped or something and went on my merry way with explaining the game. The startled look on that kids face was flippin' priceless. I think I had him convinced that the wind knocked him over, but for the remainder of our time together he was an attentive little angel.

As this group was leaving our station, Mr. Ornery was winding back up to his full butthead status and I was finding myself sympathizing with the next station leader he would encounter. Surely they would not have the presence of mind to knock the kid on his crack as I had. As we were watching them walk away Caleb looked at me and started laughing. He said "Mom, that was the greatest thing I've ever seen!" I tried to look puzzled, but yeah...my kid knows his mom too well.

So as he was reminding me of this occurrence 6 years ago, we decided that if I had been plagued with my neural overload problems of today, that boy might not have fared so well.