When Sophie was young, I thought it would be fun to get her involved in a brownie troop. I kept looking around, but, there weren't any brownie troops in the area. At least not any that weren't already full.
I wasn't very proactive until last spring when I couldn't shake the idea that I should start a troop myself (an idea that had somehow never occurred to me during my previous searching). Then I stumbled upon our local girl scout office while running errands one day.
Last summer, I attended troop leader training, mainly to find out more information, and I reluctantly turned in the paperwork to become registered to be a leader. Then, I messed everything up by inviting all of my friends' daughters who are mostly either a grade older or a grade younger than Sophie to join our troop. That wasn't good because it was turning out that I was going to have brownies and juniors this year and juniors and cadets next year -- meaning I would always have girls working from different books making things way too complicated.
Sophie and I attended a three-day day camp over the summer and I was so impressed. It was non-stop fun, super creative and, get this, we launched rockets and made diet coke and mentos fountains in the parking lot. We had a campfire with multi-colored smoke. We got messy and did experiments, and, just like every girl scout activity I've been to before or since, I was very impressed with the girls.
I got cold feet about the whole troop leader thing and decided that Sophie and I could do Juliettes together (meaning she and I work on badges without being part of a troop). But, just like everything else in life, since there wasn't a set time to work on it, it never got done.
In November, Sophie and I went to a chef camp at the girl scout office in Salt Lake. For one Friday night and all day Saturday we sampled foods from different countries and tried out new recipes. It was really fun, but, most of the girls were there with their troops and I could see that it just wasn't the same for Sophie being there with her mom as it was for the other girls.
Over the Christmas break, Sophie and I had a heart to heart during which she told me she really wished she had a "club" of some sort where she could be with girls her own age outside of school. And, in that moment, I knew. I knew that as much as I don't want to add one more thing to my busy life right now and as much as I have no idea how to be a girl scout leader and even though I think "camping" should include manis and pedis and an outdoor movie projected onto a screen -- in spite of all that I knew I had to do this troop with my daughter.
This time around, we made sure to make up a troop of 4th graders to prevent unnecessary confusion. We are starting out with just 5 girls. And, yesterday, when I asked one of the moms to be my co-leader she graciously accepted and told me that she is a den mother for the 9-year-old cub scouts. Lucky for me!!!
Oh, and Sophie IS selling girl scout cookies (but, not until Saturday as per their strict policy of not starting your cookie sales early). Let me know if you need some.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
My mom did the same thing for my sister and I when I was in the third grade. It only lasted a year but I will always remember it and how much it meant to me. Sometimes, when you are the mom, you just have to make things happen because it is the memories and not the stuff we give that matters most. I am so proud of you.
And if you ship cookies, I'll take a box. :)
Post a Comment