Author - Lorri

“The wonderful thing about brothers and sisters are
Sisters and brothers are wonderful things.
The thing we love about brothers and sisters is…
Just about everything!”*

The other day I heard Pumpkin Girl say, “Boo-oo-wa.” To get a full appreciation of what this sounds like, you have to remember that she is 6 years old and angry with her older brother. It’s sort of a half-whining sound and has three distinct syllables. (Ok, as she’s reading this over my shoulder, she wants to say it’s more of a quiet “wa.”)

So “Boo-oo-wa!,” she says. “Stop giving me the Big Eye. ”

I looked up from what I was doing. “Honey, what in the world is the ‘Big Eye’?”

“It’s when he looks at me like this,” and she proceeds to scrunch up her pretty face into something both comical and menacing at the same time. “It annoys me,” she added.

My children make me laugh, each one of them on their own. But they really, really get me going when they are being siblings. You see, I’m an only child so all this sibling stuff is new to me. The bickering I could do without, of course. It’s the other stuff that’s golden. The things they come up with together – The Big Eye, The Pit of Never Return, “The Adventures of Bear, Sock Monkey, Super Cat and Lola” – having a sibling as your best friend really adds a certain dimension to their play.

It goes beyond that, too. Like the commercials say, some things really are priceless. Like an older brother and sister who invite you into their room “because we aren’t playing with any choking hazards.” Or a sister who makes your breakfast, or a brother who saves a spot for you in his bed in case you have a nightmare. Now that’s love!

And here I was thinking that I didn’t have anything interesting to blog anymore! So I present to you my children at their finest – giving you the Big Eye.

*from “Franklin and the Green Knight“

We finally got enough snow to be worth writing about. A light dusting, followed by a layer of sleet, then more snow overnight and freezing rain in the wee morning hours. The District was shut down, with pretty much only Federal employees showing up on a two hour delay. The roads were slick and hazardous this morning and fortunately, Phil’s classes were cancelled for the day.

We attempted to have school in the morning. Boo’s best friend came by early to ask if he could play. Then an hour later, a friend of mine showed up, having trudged 2 blocks in unshoveled snow, with snow pants for my children. We bought them snow pants way back in September, of course. They were hanging in the closet, right where we would be able to find them at the first sign of flurries. I have no idea what happened to them. All the boxes marked “closet” or “clothes” have been unpacked. I will probably find them in some random box, acting a cushioning to some knick-knack, in a box marked “crafts,” along with half a dozen other things I’ve been missing. I’ve moved 9 times, I know how these things go.

Anyway, with borrowed snowpants and the gleaming snow calling, I let the children out to play. We even let Bip out. He did not enjoy trying to walk in the snow/sleet mix at all. We grabbed the baby sled and strapped him in. I pulled him around the cul-de-sac for awhile to get him used to it.

Then we went off in search of a sledding hill.

Pumpkin Girl, who always wears a dress, has her snowpants underneath her skirt.

Boo enjoyed helping Bip sled. He got a running start…

then let him go!

Bip loved it!

Later they helped our neighbors make an igloo in our front yard.

Along with the snow, Valentine’s Day also brought some gifts:

“Pirates of the Carribbean 2” for Philip, a Hello Kitty shower radio for me and little boxes full of candies for the children.

Did I mention that I am the co-leader for Pumpkin Girl’s Daisy Girl Scout Troop? Another mom and I took over when the original leader PCS’d. That’s Army talk for “moved away.” It happens a lot around here. Anyway, my co-leader Tricia and I realized that if we didn’t take over the troop, it would completely fold up. We’re both brand new to Girl Scouts in general and Daisies in particular. I was a Brownie for one year, back in the day, but that’s hardly helpful now. We were apprehensive at first but figured, “hey, they’re Kindergartners, how hard could this be?”

Let me tell you.

The original troop leader seemed at first to be very organized. The three of us sat down before she left and she told us everything she knew about being a Daisy Leader. It took about 2 hours. It seemed pretty straight forward. I took home the Big Bag of Daisy Stuff to peruse. Tricia and I attended the last meeting with the outgoing leader, to get a feel for the meeting. Looks good, looks easy, no problem.

Ha.

Problem the first: Our local Girl Scout Council requires that there be at least 2, count them – 1,2 – official GS adults in the room. No other adults allowed. No non- girl scouts allowed. I don’t know who the 2nd adult was during the first two months of meetings, but I let it go. Apparently our council is involved in an Incident and is cracking down hard and heavy on this rule.

Problem the second: I can’t make the meeting scheduled for the first week of November. Remember Problem 1? Yep, Tricia can’t hold the meeting without me. If we can get one of the other Daisy moms to sign up as a GS, she can be the other person in the room. We actually find a volunteer, but we need to move the meeting down one week in order to give her time to get all the paper work finished.

Problem #3: I go off on vacation, leaving our house to flood. Remember that I have the Big Bag of Daisy Stuff? You know where I left it, don’t you. Yep, in the dining room that got flooded. Thankfully most of the items in the bag were salvageable. The only girl’s record that was ruined was Pumpkin’s. No biggie. But now I was living in a hotel, trying to figure out when and if we’re going to move. We ended up canceling our one and only meeting scheduled in November. Which leaves us in a bit of a crunch to finish up all the Daisy requirements for the year.

Problem #4: Our GS year ends in May because of all the moving that goes on in the military. The height of the moving season starts right after Memorial Day. The previous leader had all the Daisy Petals mapped out for the rest of the year, but now I’ve got to try and rework the schedule to make up for the missed meeting. We only meet twice a month, so there was quite a bit of wrangling to do to make it all fit. I spent hours arranging and rearranging potential crafts, petal requirements, and trying to make things line up with fun patches (more on that later). Then there’s “bridging” requirements to fulfill before the Daisies can “bridge” to being Brownies. Oh the horror!

This is the point where I should have just quit.

Problem #5:
While the previous leader (let’s just refer to her as PL from now on)did schedule when each petal would be achieved, that’s about all she did. She did not leave any suggestions on appropriate craft projects. She did not leave a list of crafts she did last year as the leader. So as the designated craft lady, I had to come up with age appropriate crafts that are somehow related to the petals were are working on. Things like “courageous and strong”, “friendly and helpful.” It really shouldn’t be that hard, right?

Problem #6: PL set the dues at $3 a month. That leaves us about $2 per fun patch (more on this later) and $1 per craft – per month for each girl. Somebody please show me a craft you can do for 50 cents!!! It can’t be done. I know, I looked. And looked. And looked. In the end, we were able to come up with some crafts that could be done for free, linking right into our “use resources wisely” petal, and got the moms to donate unused scrapbooking supplies. But honestly – 50 cents a craft?

Problem #7: World Thinking Day. I still don’t totally understand this concept. I think (giggle) that on World Thinking Day, the Girl Scouts are supposed to think about the other girl scout-esque programs all over the world. I don’t know why we need to spend a whole day on it, but then again, nobody asked my opinion. PL’s only guidance is that Thinking Day is “very important.” Apparently, there is also a theme for Thinking Day. This year the theme is something about developing your potential. The suggestions for Thinking Day activities were wonderfully vague and unhelpful for the Daisy level. We finally just asked the Brownie leader what they were planning and could we please join them. So that’s our plan. I have no idea what’s in store, I just know that at the appointed date and time, I’m turning my Daisies over to the Brownies. I do know that at some point the Awarding of the Trefoil pin will occur. Which leads to…

Problem #8:
What happened to the Trefoil pins? Our beloved PL gave all us moms this wonderful “Welcome to Girl Scouting” letter that she wrote. In it she listed the recommend items we could buy, but really emphasized that these were optional items. Even in her orientation talk to us it was like, “hey buy these things if you want, but don’t sweat it, they are only Daisies for one year.” Several items on the list were marked “turn in to me, I will award at a later date.” I, of course, bought everything on the list, turned over the petals which need to be earned before being worn, the Daisy membership pin which would be awarded at the official investiture ceremony, the membership star earned at the end of the year and this trefoil pin, to be awarded for Thinking Day.

Apparently, I was the only one. Out of the 7 girls in our troop, 2 have already earned their trefoil pin, Pumpkin’s is in the Big Bag of Daisy Stuff and that’s it. We discovered today that one girl has already been wearing hers. Her mom also ironed on all of the petals on to her tunic, even though they are supposed to be earned. In talking to the other moms, they are all “oh, of course I want to buy the pin!” Uh, so why didn’t you buy it back in September. Oh that’s right, because PL said it was optional. So now we’re in a bit of a bind. The local GS mini store will only be opened on one day between now and Thinking Day. Someone is going to have to make a run to the main GS store in downtown DC. Fun! I think not. Looks like we’ll just order them through the mail.

Are you still with me? If not, I don’t blame you. I know my head’s about to explode!

Problem #9: The fun patches. Holy smokes, Batman! It’s just not supposed to be this hard. I will spare you most of the agonizing details of how Tricia and I finally figured out what a fun patch is and how it is earned. The answer is, “anything you want” and “however you want.” I’m all for letting the troop leaders exercise some creativity, but give us some kind of guidance! PL did actually indicate that certain months would go with certain fun patches. Tricia and I only had to come up with one or two of them. PL designated April as being Earth Day fun patch. Makes sense. Since we are going to be ordering only 3 trefoil pins, I do a little looking around the GS online store to see what else we might want. The one patch we haven’t tried looking for yet is the Earth Day patch. Turns out the GS store doesn’t sell one. Shouldn’t be hard to find, right? I googled Earth Day patch. I googled Earth patch. I searched high and low. The only thing remotely close to being an Earth Day patch has to do with recycling. Well, we’re not focusing on recycling at all. Not even close. I just want a simple patch with a globe, maybe some hearts or hugging arms showing how much we love the earth. I hope something turns up. Because with a budget of $2 a patch and only 7 girls in our troop, there is no way we can afford to have one made up for us.

So this is where we stand. (I didn’t even mention how PL left town without transferring the troop’s bank account over to me. )Tricia and I send each other about 300 emails a day trying to get this all worked out.

Daisy Girl Scouts – It’s not supposed to be this hard!!!

Can you believe we’re both considering being Brownie co-leaders next year?