Death of a Cub Scout

  Have you ever had a night with your child that you just wanted to strangle him and make a new one? Last night was one of those nights for me. I am happy to say that I restrained myself. We went to Cub Scouts last night and it was alright for the first three minutes and things turned for the worse.
  He kept looking over at the bigger kids wanting to play. Their project must have had something to do with having fun, jumping, and being generally loud; no, judgments here.
  Darrel wanted to play and I was having trouble keeping his attention. Our goal was to cut a few different types of food out and organize on the food pyramid. He wanted to cut out cars and refrigerators. I finally got him on task when, he asked me a question. I over looked the question because of the noise. But out of the corner of my eye notices the scissors high into the air.
  Then he asked again. "Dad, can I cut my hair."
  I grabbed for the scissors and explained that it wasn't a good idea to cut his hair in the middle of a Cub Scout meeting, when we should be doing other responsible things, such as, the project at hand.
  It came out as simple, justifiably, "NO!"
  "But I want to," he responded.
  Once again I explained it to him," NO! You can't cut your hair."
  I let him run off to play, while, I cleaned the scraps up and by the time I was done he was already getting into trouble.
  We went home after that.
  The house was cold and quiet. I told him to get dressed for bed. He came back expecting to watch TV or play video games. He didn't seem all that surprised when I told him he was going to bed early. In fact, it was the easiest time I had getting him to bed. I had to stop him at the stairs to explain why. He understood and disappeared up the stairs.
  He was tired, this being his first day back from school and first day back from scout. I am just glad that I didn't strangle him.