S'Mores, Anyone?

SO.

Because I love Princess Pinky so much, I took on the job of Brownie Girl Scout Troop Leader this year.

To sixteen first grade girls.

I know. A fool for love, am I.

While I spent a few years as a Girl Scout in those long gone days of pigtails and jellie shoes, my Troop focused more on the fine art of making a braided yarn spice hanger (quit snorting; you know you made one for your Mom, too) and the importance of adhering to a Mary Kay beauty regimen than on actual camping.

This ticked my eight-year-old self off to no end. Crafts and I still do not see eye to eye.

And Mary Kay? On little girls? I went home that night looking like a Broadway refugee.

No, crafts and makeup just didn't speak to me. What I wanted to do in Girl Scouts was stuff like this:




The pink blur walking across the middle of the log is me at a Pampered Camper Girl Scout event last September. My real life buddy and fellow blogger Em shot the photo; poor girl was preggo and could only sit and watch the fun.

My Troop is a bit young to tackle the Ropes Course, but I've managed to hold a campfire night with s'mores and took them climbing at the Y. I try to keep crafts at a minimum and chose the messy ones over the fussy ones. We've held many other events this year - aren't you just bursting to know how I keep sixteen first grade girls happily busy? - and now it's time to get ready for Summer Day Camp.

They'll wade in the creek, camp cook their lunches, and traipse through the woods, hopefully falling so in love with Girl Scouts that they'll stick with it for the long run.

It's so easy to keep them happy now, so simple to smooth their ruffled chick feathers. Life at six and seven is peachy keen fun every day for these girls; it's life at ten and eleven that will send them spinning into new worlds that can't compete with a make-your-own-t-shirt craft.

And that's when they'll really need what Girl Scouts offers: a place to be just a girl.

Not a pretty princess.

Or a cheer queen.

Or a dancing darling.

Or a soccer sweetie.

Girl Scouts is a place to be just a smart, helpful, and resourceful girl. Just because.

In this age of uber-children, of endless competition and prep classes, camps, and clinics all in the pursuit of being the veryverybest at fill-in-the-blank on the block, it's refreshing to see the girls in my Troop get excited at the prospect of a week spent drinking Bug Juice and eating burnt hot dogs.

And it's fun to let that wee girl in me come out to play again, too.

WM