My Life as a Den Leader: Year 2

Tonight was our first den meeting of year two, and only one of my boys from last year showed up--and it wasn't even Reese! But two very new and very nice boys showed up, and I knew ahead of time there was the possibility two or three from last year wouldn't make it this week. (By the way, Reese missed, because he had two of his teeth pulled earlier in the afternoon to make room for some other teeth.)

The Wolf Badge: Our main goal this year.

Since we're in year two, the boys will be actively working toward their Wolf patches this year after earning their Bobcat and Tiger Cub patches last year. I'm really excited to see how they change over the next year, because they definitely developed last year.

I'm bummed that Reese wasn't able to make it out tonight, because one of my two new scouts is actually in Reese's second grade class. But I learned last year that the first few weeks of the year tend to be pretty chaotic, and everyone will be in a pretty good rhythm by the middle of September.

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In other news, Will had his first ever dentist appointment this morning, and he actually thought it was great. Of course, it probably helped that Tammy took him to Chick-Fil-A afterward and let him run loose on the indoor playground there.

Later in the day, Reese had those two teeth pulled and two fillings. He, of course, didn't think it was great, and he couldn't have Chick-Fil-A afterward. But he'll at least have a visit from the tooth fairy tonight.

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One of the cool things about scouting is that there are plenty of cool projects in the scouting handbooks. Here are a few other resources with fun projects:

• The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden
• The Daring Book for Girls, by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz
• The Double-Daring Book for Girls, by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz
• The Big Book of Boy Stuff, by Bart King