On My Honor...I Forget the Rest

Anyone who knows me very well probably knows that I've been avoiding the scouting program since I got married. At one point, when I was called to be Primary President, I called a counselor just to handle 'all things scouts' so I wouldn't have to figure it all out. I actually told her that I didn't care if she didn't do anything else, so long as I didn't have to go there. It's not that I'm against scouting. Both of my brothers are Eagle Scouts and so is my husband. In high school I helped some of my friends with their scout projects. Scouting is great and I want my boys to participate in the program. I just don't get the program. Scouting is a language all of its own. I think it includes wolves, bears, eagles, and I want to say chipmunks, but that can't be right because all of the other creatures would eat them. I think scouts are supposed to learn to light fires and sing songs about peanut butter and jelly. I was always jealous of the food (especially the pudding snacks and trail mix) that my mom would buy for my brothers to take on their scouting campouts. I also wished that the young women would have a pine wood derby night and get to paint up blocks of wood into race cars. Who wouldn't like that?? And that nearly sums up my knowledge of scouting. I was planning on learning the rest of the stuff when my boys got to be older. So just imagine my surprise when, in this temporary ward, I was asked to be a leader of the "bears". Really?????? I thought I was off the hook until Daniel was 8. (That is less that a year away! Yikes.) So I'm not really sure what I'm doing. The book seems to be in code. Since I was never a scout myself, I could really use an interpretive manual. It skips all over the place and talks about someone called Akea or something. Why don't they just make scouting straight forward. Could someone just give me a list of requirements. What is all of this talk of belt loops and beads and arrows?? Maybe this will give me the chance to figure it all out, so I'll get it right when my own boys are involved. Oh well, here goes nothing...Now would be a great time for us to get that house we're waiting for.