Sometimes It's Hard to Be the Youngest

It's twenty degrees outside tonight. Twenty degrees. And dropping. Seems like the perfect night to sit at home cuddled up by a nice warm fire to watch a fun family movie together, right?  Or ....

You could head out into the great outdoors for a miserably cold Boy Scout camp out. 

It turns out that my sweet husband and my scouting sons think that camping out tonight is the better idea. Or I should probably clarify ... Hyrum and Spencer think it is a good idea. Herman thinks it is insane, but he's playing the role of supportive dad tonight since Hyrum could only attend if Herman was there with him.

Hyrum is soooo excited to go camping. It is his first scouting camp out, and he wasn't going to miss it, no matter what. He started planning for this event a week ago. His first task was to make a list of essential supplies. He spent a long time working on this list, and finally he was able to hand me a list of the things he needed to survive the harsh conditions tonight. On this list were only three items. What were they?

A Flashlight

A Band Aid

And Oreos Double Stuf (of course)

Seems about right, don't you think? Herman and I thought that he probably was going to need a few more things in order to make it through the super low temperatures tonight, but Spencer thought that Hyrum's list was pretty good. Of course, Spencer would have worn shorts tonight if we'd let him. Boys ....

Hyrum all decked out and on his way
to his first camp out.

Herman and Spencer have become experts at packing for these events. Herman has collected enough camping supplies to outfit a small army, I think. They went about collecting things and packing them up for the trip while I threw together a few foil dinners for them. Hyrum just sat around grinning as he thought of his upcoming adventure. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, until Minsy came into the kitchen to tell me that JoJo was sad. I hurried around the corner ... and poor JoJo was lying on a chair sobbing. Oh no!

I didn't even consider how this camp out was going to affect JoJo. Hyrum and JoJo are best friends. They do everything together. Everything. JoJo was not handling being left behind very well. I tried to do what I could to cheer JoJo up, but nothing was working. I asked him if there was anything fun that we could do tonight while the older boys were camping, and he wailed, "I don't know what to do if Hyrum isn't with me!"  It was a rough hour as JoJo worked through his emotions. I felt so bad for him as he cried and cried and cried. At times I would think that everything was better, and then I would hear a huge sob bubble out of him.

Herman took a second to comfort JoJo before
he and the scouters headed out the door.

The boys left and I enlisted JoJo as my right hand man as I drove to pick up Katie from her after school activities. We ordered pizza and decided to have a girls and JoJo night sitting in front of the fire, staying warm, and watching Big Hero 6. By the time the pizza arrived JoJo was feeling better ... not perfect, but getting there. 

Finally I found the thing that brought JoJo right out of his doldrums. He took charge and decided to build our fire for our cozy night at home. This is normally a job that Herman or the older boys would do, but with me supervising JoJo got the chance to be the big man of the house tonight. It made his night, I think.

Sometimes it can be super hard to be the youngest, always seemingly left behind as older siblings head off on adventures without you. JoJo is going to be experiencing that a lot in the next several years. I feel this huge need to cushion the blow as he goes through all these hard moments. I'll probably overcompensate, I'm sure, as I try to make it all better. For now, I hope that it will be enough for JoJo to enjoy a little JoJo/Mom time in front of a roaring fire.

I love my JoJo.

***UPDATE ... Katie was soooo good with JoJo after she came home from helping clean up at the dance that her jazz band set up as a fundraiser for their Disney trip. She set things up so that everyone could have a sleepover in the basement. JoJo was sad because Hyrum is always with him when they do basement sleepovers. When Katie mentioned watching a movie, JoJo teared up a little and said that he didn't want to watch any show that talked about brothers ... or parents dying (don't know where that came from). She ended up setting things up so that they could watch a marathon of "How the States Got Their Shape." Perfect!

It was a little messy, but my little man got the job done.