When the boy became a Cub Scout, the girl started saying, “I want to be a Girl Scout! Can I be a Girl Scout?” It was a refrain I heard often enough that when she started kindergarten, I sought out a Daisy troop (Daisies, which didn’t exist when I was a child, is the first level of Girl Scouts, before Brownies. It’s for kindergartners and 1st graders). Of course, there wasn’t one for her.
So I started one. Of course.
Today was our second meeting. The girls are working on their “Use resources wisely” petal, so for the past month, I have researched crafts. I have experimented doing crafts at home with the girl to make sure they were doable. I have checked out kid recycling books from the library. I have begged friends and neighbors to save me their toilet paper rolls. I’ve shopped for paints and jingle bells. I annoyed Adam with the mounds of recycling that I wouldn’t let him get rid of “just in case I needed it for one of the projects.” I carted three huge bags of supplies over to the school. I got yummy–yet allergy-free–snacks for the girls. I send the boy off to hang with a friend. I, with the help of another mother, shepherded the children through egg-carton jingle bell ornaments, toilet-paper roll bracelets, bottle lid magnets, foil ornaments, toilet-paper roll ornaments. I read about where our garbage goes. I listened to them share ideas about how they can reuse–and about their stuffed animals. I clean up the mounds of paper mess.
We get home. I unload the bags from the car. I sort things and put them away. I eye the wine. I ask my daughter, “So, how was the Daisy meeting?”
She looks up at me, cocks her head, and shrugs one shoulder. “It was medium,” she tells me.
“Medium?”
“Yeah, medium. Not good, not bad. Medium.”
And that’s when open the wine and count the minutes till Adam gets home.
