Jubilee Jubilation!

It was the best of Girl Scouting:  hundreds of girls exploring science (robots, astronomy), history (of Girl Scouts and also local CT sites), physical activities (tennis, rock climbing, Taekwondo, jumping rope), volunteer work (different booths by troops), environmental concerns (animals, composting), health (nutrition, recess, platelet donations), while singing, making arts and crafts (bracelets bracelet bracelets), and participating in SWAPS (aka Special Whatchamacallit Affectionately Pinned Somewhere).

Sis in full Daisy tunic with camp backpack and SWAP lanyard rushed from place to place trying so many things. Early on in the day, she received a huge special button announcing her 100+ cookie sales, which prompted a group of GS alum to serenade her with "99 boxes of cookies for sale" (you know the tune!).  She liked SWAPping, quickly exchanging her 25 marshmallows-on-skewers "I Love S'mores" SWAPS for a variety of cute pins--a "Got Cookies?" glass of milk, a slice of (sponge) GS birthday cake, square s'mores, a polymer clay whale, several beaded pins, lots of pompom pins, and such (next time, we'll a) make more SWAPS and b). bring two big Ziploc bags, one for giving away and one for collecting.  See here for SWAP etiquette and here for examples).  Sis was great about approaching older girls all on her own, negotiating the SWAPS (which is a given--you can't really refuse a SWAP if someone asks you, even if you have one like theirs or don't want one).  I only vaguely remember one SWAPS meet when I was a Brownie; don't know what I'd made but got an old black film cannister fountain soda made out of pompoms with a straw that I treasured for years. (Can leaders SWAP??  I wanna play!)  

She also liked visiting the trading post for a special Jubilee patch and a new camp journal.  And she liked the bounce houses.  Bud spent a lot of time in the bounce houses, being a really good sport about being a "GS Bro" (as proclaimed by the SWAP Sis made him).  He also enjoyed the different booths, such as the one where he and Sis played a water rapids Wii game together and when they got to run through the chambers of a giant inflatable heart.  We also did two stops on the Jubilee GS promise letterboxing trail, having come prepared with our own new family letterboxing journal and a bunny and a penguin stamp.

The day turned hotter than we expected, even with all of our water, and we'd mistakenly left many of the outside activities for later in the day (which is why we only did 2 letterboxing stops and none of the scavenger hunt--there's always more to do than there is time (which was hard for the kids).  The line for lunch was 100+ people long.  Seriously.  And the kids got fatigued after 4 hours (no shock there).  And so we headed out for lunch and home midday.  It was still a wonderful day and we'll do another big GS gathering again.  But we'll take more water, our own food, more hats and sunscreen, a rolling bag instead of backpacks, and more SWAPS!

I'm already looking for a new design!  A clothespin bunny, perhaps . . . .

Light in the Darkness

Yesterday at Daisies, we hand-rolled beeswax candles for Mother's Day presents.  The girls really enjoyed picking their moms' favorite colors, rolling the candles, and putting together the decorative cards.  Sis chose purple for me and green for Mama, but I wasn't supposed to be watching!

But as we were enjoying our craft, I saw one little girl standing before the others and pulling at the corners of her eyes, "Chinese, Japanese . . ." and I knew where she was going.  An old rhyme from childhood, that ended with the speaker pulling up her skirt and showing her underwear, but not before slanting her eyes up and down.  "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these!"

I hurried over to the other side of the room, thankful that Sis was nowhere nearby, and sat the girls down for a talk.  I told them that rhymes like that could hurt people's feelings because it made fun of them and the way they looked.  I knew they didn't want to do that--I'm not sure they even realized what was wrong with pulling up and down on your eyes with a singsong verse.  And I wasn't about to talk about racism and prejudice particularly; I just wanted them to be more sensitive and compassionate.  They of course denied saying anything of the sort, as kids would, and then said they didn't even know that Sis was Chinese.  And then they seemed to feel bad.

On the way home, I had to talk to Sis about it because if girls are reciting this in Daisies, no doubt it's spreading around school.  I remember it going around my school when I was about that age . . . and we didn't know it was insensitive and hurtful; racism never occurred to us.  Sis hadn't heard of the rhyme and wasn't sure what it even meant.  We talked about the inherent worth and dignity of everybody and how talking about how people look or act or where they come from isn't respectful.   We talked about what to do if people said such things that hurt her feelings, how she could say that wasn't nice or appropriate, walk away, and then tell an adult.  As they always do, Sis nodded in understanding, and probably in some boredom, as did Bud when I repeated it all to him later.

I knew such things would eventually rear their ugly heads.  Teasing, mocking, insults, tinged with racism, sexism, sizism, homophobia, are common on American playgrounds.  I'm glad I got to talk to the kids before it was directed at them, though no doubt when the time comes it will still be painful.  For now, they are mostly innocent of it all, untouched by some of the ugliness in our world.

Just like her candles, to paraphrase Willy Wonka, so shines a bright light in a weary world . . . .

Daisy Doings

I don't blog much about Daisies, though I'm not sure why.  Well, one reason is I'm in no way a model Girl Scout leader and there are many sites out there that can better demonstrate how it's done.  Another is I don't really want to write about other people's children here much and so a discussion of our meetings would be very dry.  So, like last year, I thought I'd summarize what we've done this year by listing the patches we earned (it's all rather casual for patches, while badges have stricter requirements and are official, being worn on the front of tunics instead of just the back).  Of course, there's more to it than our list of fun patches below--like spilling popcorn on the floor at snack, playing in the bathrooms by trying to crawl into each other's stalls, singing at the top of their strong lungs as we march down the school hallways, playing "Jump Jack Jones" or whatever it's called over and over and over again, scurrying to locate coats and bags in the huge pile at the end of the meeting, all volunteering to start the GS promise, proudly distributing the snacks and drinks they bring, dressing up for our holiday Nutcracker party, and so much more . . . . I'm looking forward to Brownies next year!

Fun Patches:

• flag ceremony--learned how to conduct Girl Scout flag ceremony
• yoga--learned several poses and played Yoga Garden game
• arts and crafts--decorated the local library with our wonderful owl paintings
• baking--made candy for teachers and staff during winter holidays
• community service--visited to the senior living center
• hiking--went letterboxing in nearby park
• pumpkin picking--farm tour, pumpkin picking, and hayride
• horseback riding--stable tour with grooming lesson and horseback riding
• science and nature--bird sanctuary tour
• yarn crafts--paper-plate weaving at historic colonial house

Spring Break: Not All Bad

Sure, influenza isn't great and it is greatly affecting the week, but the news from today isn't all dire.  First, Gommie and Pop had their flu shots (and the doc thinks Bud's strain was probably covered in the vaccine) and also probably have some natural immunities because of their ages (the ped said that people born before 1950 even have some swine flu resistance!).  I had my flu shot, too.  Not sure about Mama, though I'm afraid she didn't.  Sis didn't and so we will be watching her for up to 72 hours after Bud is fever-free, which is awhile yet. So, yeah, we cancelled our overnight trip and other things, but we got some Legos and an art kit to distract us all.

But before all that, we were doing pretty well.  Bud woke up happy and low fever, after 12 hours asleep.  He and Sis played SW figures, Legos, and Squinkies, specifically building Lego houses for the little critters.

Then Sis and I made delicious sourdough biscuits (coincidentally, on the day that KAF posted their new sourdough post.)  She mixed, rolled out dough, and cut biscuits, which she likes best warm with honey.

Midday, while Pop played with a seemingly improving Bud (at the pool--hope the chlorine is strong!  And I think at the beach.  Then for ice cream.  He seemed better earlier today.  And was definitely better today than yesterday), Gommie drove Sis and I to our Daisy horseback riding field trip.  Horseback riding is a common, casual hobby up here, like soccer and ballet are elsewhere.  There are lots of stables in the state and many people ride occasionally or even more regularly; girls down the street took lessons for a few years. (It's not rodeo but equestrian-type events and riding, I think.)  In fact, my co-leaders had both taken lessons and ridden competitively for this very stable 25-ish years ago!  People always think I know horses--that Texas stereotype (and I do have cousins who are experienced horsewomen who have been in rodeos)--but it's just not true.  I sat on my cousin Wendy's horse (without a saddle, with a few others, with me on the very back, as I recall) for a minute or so one Family Christmas and immediately begged to get down.  That's been it. No Black Beauty/horse-crazy phase for me.

At first, I thought Sis was similarly hesitant when she refused to help groom the horses beforehand.  But she got right up on a tall bay (that's dark brown for us non-horse people) named "Cow" (or something like that), helmet firmly in place, and rode him around the ring a dozen or so times, holding the reins in her left hand, kicking him to speed up, shouting "ho" and pulling to stop, pulling left or right to turn, and even trotting quickly.  Of course, there was a stable hand nearby the whole time, one for each mounted girl (a few at a time), but a few times she was ostensibly all on her own.  Except these retired racehorses were so docile and used to lessons that they pretty much went where they were supposed to go.  I think she's caught the horse fever now and was begging to have her birthday party at the stables, to take lessons, to ride again soon.

It was definitely a high point of the day, especially in contrast to the low points.  That, and pizza for dinner!

Happy 100th Birthday, Girl Scouts!

It's the Girl Scout Jubilee, the anniversary of the founding of the now-largest organization for girls by Juliette Gordon Low!

Interestingly, I vividly remember getting in trouble during a third-grade math lesson for reading a biography of Juliette Gordon Low that I'd just gotten during library time!  (Honestly, I think it was the only time I got called out by name in class in school ever.  It was a great series of biographies, particularly of childhood, of Americans, in the early 1970s, with the long lists of people in both front and back flyleafs; I read all the ones on women--Dorothea Dix, Juliette Gordon Low, Julia Ward Howe, Mary Todd Lincoln, Louisa May Alcott, even Sacagawea, albeit a Native American, etc etc.  Possibly Childhood of Famous Americans series (here and here).).

As you know, I was a Girl Scout for years, from Brownie through Senior, plus camp counseling at Girl Scout camp Mira Sol for children with special needs outside of San Antonio, and am so grateful for my experiences.  I loved earning badges, going to swap meets and other programs, and selling cookies (back when they were 75 cents a box . . . and I still only ever sold about 75, compared to Sis's 300+), only stopping when my troop dissolved (not knowing anything about Gold Star or other programs).  But camp had to be, by far, my favorite Girl Scout activity.  I started at day camp and then moved to my first, two-night, sleepover camp at Camp Robinwood outside of Houston.  Singing, s'mores, crafts, swimming.  I loved it. Later, I went to week-long camps at Camp Agnes Arnold and Camp Casa Mare, where we did outdoor experiments, canoeing, theater arts, and all manner of wonderful things.  I loved packing for camp, then setting up my cot with mosquito netting and sleeping bag (usually my blue, Holly Hobbie-esque Joan Walsh Anglund one), getting mail from Gommie (who always packed one and left one with the counselors so I always had mail), going to the camp store for t-shirts and pillowcases, making friends with my bunkmates, having crushes on the counselors (most memorably, Jo, at Casa Mare.  I should have known.  And now I can read about other lesbian scout experiences in On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience by Nancy Manahan).  That doesn't begin to touch on the arts (tie-dye, wax candles, telephone wire jewlery), the songs (oh, my favorite part was signing around the campfire and I remember them all!), the food (campfire cooking, plus I even liked the cafeteria food!).  Being a counselor, for three or four summers at Mira Sol (I was also a counselor at a Boy Scout camp and also at a YMCA day camp, both for special needs), was just wonderful, really an extension of my own camping, because we mentored in pairs or small groups and did all the activities with our campers (who were only a few years younger than I was in early adolescence), and then got to socialize with other counselors during afternoon rest and at night.  Even when we were flooded and had to evacuate as the Guadalupe River rose, it was great and thrilling.   I wish I could go back to camp now.

And so I am now a leader for Sis's Daisy troop (they didn't have Daisies way back when), just like Gommie was for me for a few years (for my thoughts on Boy Scouts, see here and here.  Briefly, homophobic, theocratic Boy Scouts stink.)  We've done arts and crafts, singing, field trips, community service, and explorations of different activities, like yoga and (soon) letterboxing and horseback riding, plus, of course, cookie sales.  Sis has even gone to day camp and will go again this summer.  I can't wait to continue Scouting with her and hope she stays in it for years, as long as it is a rewarding and interesting experience for her (and not just because I love it, though it will be bittersweet if she wants to stop before I do!).

So, happy birthday, Girl Scouts and thanks for the memories in the past and the ones Sis and I are making now!

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(Support your local Girl Scouts by buying cookies--send a message to Rep. Bob Morris of Indiana, and other hardcore Republicans, who have an untrue, even creepy view that Girl Scouts promote the sexualization and lesbianism of girls and are a gateway to Planned Parenthood. Seriously?  What is it with Republicans and their obsession with sex?  Like Rush Limbaugh wanting to watch??  Ugh.  But more on that another time.)

Namaste, Daisies

Today, Sis and her Daisy troop explored yoga with one of my co-leaders, sixteen girls stretching and moving with their young, flexible, strong bodies.  They did a meditation Starbright: Meditations for Children by Maureen Garth, heard the story The Happiest Tree by Uma Krishnaswarmi, danced with scarves and practiced various poses to the music of Kira Willey, played a cooperative yoga game called Yoga Garden, and followed the leader in these poses:
 
*Sun Salutaion
*Mountain Pose
*Ragdoll
*Plank Pose
*Cobra/Snake
*Dog Pose
*Butterfly
*Peacock
*Pretzel Spinal Twist
*Chair Pose
*Flamingo 
*Child's Pose
*Tree Pose
*Bridge Pose
*Cat Pose (angry and happy!)


It was a wonderful hour of union of mind, body, and spirit.


(Gommie, I'll get the Yoga Garden Game for you to play the next time you're here--you'll be the only adult who can!)



 

Bird Brains

We have birds on the brain over here.

It started a few weeks ago, I think, when the Daisies and siblings went to the Audubon Center and saw some birds of prey--a peregrine falcon, a red-tailed hawk, plus a barn owl and a turkey vulture.  Sis bought a bird log in the shop, a kid's journal with spaces for drawings and details about bird encounters.  When she got home, she began to fill it out with the birds at the center.

The following Sunday at church, the RE classes went on a nature walk with a naturalist/bird expert.  They saw a mourning dove, a starling, and a cooper's hawk.  The hawk was eating and flew off with its bit of squirrel, to the kids' delight.  They also learned some bird calls (including the "nose" bird call, which is sounded through a pinched nose) and when certain birds begin waking (different ones at different hours between 4-8 a.m.).  Of course, all of this went in the bird log.  And then, after church, we played a new game:  hawk-and-squirrel tag.  I think you can imagine.

Sis now sees birds everywhere and dutifully puts them in her book:  Canadian geese, red-winged blackbird, seagull, swan, cardinal.  And she's talking birds with Gommie and Pop, who always have a bird story. like their recent spotting of a Ross's goose.

Of course, Mama and I have one other kind of winged creature on our mind, which is of course not a bird:  the bat in our belfry.  It has not resurfaced or reemerged, but there is proof in the attic that it wasn't a solitary visit.  So, the bat people will be coming to do an exclusion, which involves sealing up our roof anywhere there is a crevice wider than a pencil tip, and then the renovation people will come clean and restore the attic.  I guess that's our house project for 2012.

I think I like bird-watching better.

Mommy Mycroft

I've been the behind-the-scenes Daisy leader for almost two months now, totally unable to attend the meetings but perfectly capable of helping design and organize them. Something akin to Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft, who solved crimes from a leather chair in his club. I thought up ideas, themes, activities, and then relayed all the details and sometimes even a few supplies to my co-leader, who implemented them, without ever complaining about any of it, understanding and supporting my situation.

Today was the culmination of it all, both the Daisy Year but also my "ghostwriting" of the event. It was the end-of-year Daisy picnic, with the Daisies and their families, food, play, distribution of cookie incentives, just a general celebration and wrap-up of our first year of scouts. And I couldn't go--it just wasn't an easy outing and I didn't want the focus to be on me instead of the kids.

So Mama took Sis and Bud, who played with all their friends for almost two hours, eating sandwiches and desserts and then running around the playground with all their school friends. At the end of the playtime, Sis got all of her cookie incentives for selling 301 cookies--so patches, a bandanna, a t-shirt, bag, little purse, and stuffed kangaroo that looks like a bunny rabbit. "I'm a grown-up girl now!," she enthused while wearing her oversized shirt and carrying her messenger bag filled with her purse and other incentives, plus Shirt and Amy the bunny. Bud also got his cookie incentive for tolerating and even encouraging her cookie sales--he got a Lego castle kit.

It was a great year and I really enjoyed being a Daisy leader. More importantly, Sis loved being a Daisy Scout (and was even upset that today was the last day til the fall). We did all sorts of fun things, earning all of our Daisy Petals, including:

Light Blue: honest and fair--game day with board and group games (without cheating!)

Yellow: helpful and friendly--chore charts for helping at home

Spring Green: considerate and caring--Thanksgiving placemats for senior center

Purple: respect for myself and others--full-sized self portraits

Magenta: respect for authority--tour of the fire station with homework to have a family meeting place and check the fire alarms

Rose: make the world a better place--World Thinking Day, reading Ruby's Wish, and letters to the principal about what they appreciate about school

Violet: sister to every GS--make bead bracelets to exchange at a joint holiday party with our sister troop

Red: courageous and strong--field trip to a children's gym

Green: use resources wisely--visiting the Garbage Museum and learning about recycling

Orange: responsible for what I say and Do--thank-you notes to all

Plus, of course, all of our work selling cookies.

And I look forward to next year's Daisy year. But I hope to help beyond the confines of my proverbial armchair.

"On My Honor": Dishonest and Unfair

The girls played games today at Daisy Scouts to earn their "Honest and Fair" petal. We spent a little time discussing the concepts of lying, cheating, honesty, and fairness. But, because I've been reading NurtureShock, which notes that something like 96% of four year olds lie about once an hour (!), I knew there would be some cheating and lying (and that parents are no better than chance at guessing if their own children are lying! Teachers do a bit better but only about 60%.)

For "Freeze Dance," I would play music so the girls could dance; when the music stopped, they were supposed to stop. If they kept going, they were supposed to sit out. My co-leader and I were not going to referee. The girls were self-policing.

Except they didn't. At the very first stop, my own Sis made a huge swirl after the music ended. But stayed in the game.

They all did it. More than once. Over the course of about 10 turns. Even when we said, "Are you sure no one moved?" They were sure.

Sure good at smiling and lying at the same time.

Just like I'd read they would.