Girl Scouts is a pivotal moment in most little girls lives. From Daisy to Brownie to Junior, and so on, you learn many important skills and build up your character. Here are a few things I learned in my troop.
1. NEVER forget your snacks/drinks on your assigned day
This happens to everyone at least once. You forget to tell your mom or dad that you have snacks/drinks for the next meeting and then your mind wanders off to whatever interests you next. Then all of a sudden you walk into your next meeting with your little smock on, empty handed and you will never live it down. I mean, it's your biggest sin to date.
2. Always strive to sell the most cookies in your troop.
Girl Scout cookie season is the best time of the year. Seeing all of the bright and shining faces walking door to door with their parents while trying to coax you into buying at least 3 boxes of your favorite cookies. Of course, they break down and buy 5 boxes of each kind and fork over the check that you happily took from them. On delivery day is a whole other story. Delivery day is when you finally see your troop mates and how much they sold and successfully thinking that you were the best.
3. Having your mom as the troop leader was the bomb.com
My mom was my troop leader until I was almost graduated from Brownies. But until then, I always got to see all of the crafts and outings before everyone else. I always had something to hang over my troop mates heads. I was always the first to show up at meetings and the last to go home.
4. Having an older sister in another troop is an amazing way to make older friends.
My sister was in another troop also run by my mom. Just one more perk of being the troop leader's daughter was that I got to go on all of the outings with my sister's troop too. I was the "mascot" as my mom called me and that troop even got t-shirts with everyone's name and mine was on there too! It was truly an honor.
5. Take your time with your crafts so you know yours won't be the the absolute worst.
Craft time was the best/worst part of the whole meetings. You finally got to play with scissors and glue but you had to do it under supervision. Lame, fortunately for me though, my mom would always have my sister and I test out the crafts first. But I learned that you always need to take your time and see how everyone else is doing before you tackle yours fully because then it's guaranteed that yours won't be the absolute worst.
6. When your dad says he will be waiting in the parking lot for you, he doesn't really mean it.
This is only true when you live right down the road from where the meetings were held. My dad had promised me that he would be waiting in the parking lot for me when I was done with my meeting. When my little legs carried me to the parking lot after the meeting was done, I noticed that my dad's car wasn't there and I began to panic. As I looked around I noticed his car coming down the road that we lived on and I was very upset with him. I mean could you blame me? He promised he would sit in the parking lot for me.
7. Libraries are great places for Easter egg hunts
Again, my mom is a creative genius and set up an Easter egg hunt in the library where we held our meetings. About 13 little girls all wandering around an enclosed area was pretty much what it sound like. But of course we had enough supervision to where it was completely safe.
8. Having carnivals in your front yard is the most fun you'll have in your whole life.
Another amazing outing put on by my mother. She set up all kinds of games and activities to do in our front yard. Of course, I had the time of my life and was running around with the other girls creating a mess.
9. Make sure your petals don't fall off of your Daisy smock so you don't look like an underachiever.
Smocks were all the rage in our Daisy days. You always wanted to be the first one with all of the petals patched onto your smock. However, even though the patches say iron-ons, you better sew them. Nothing is worse than showing up to a meeting with a full flower one time, then the next it looks like you got demoted a petal. Save yourself the humiliation and just sew the dang things on.
10. When your mom is the troop leader, you don't get away with anything.
Again, my mom being the troop leader was a blessing and a curse. You got to see everything that you were going to do, but she saw everything that we were about to do. Going to the bathroom without a buddy? That's a big no-no. Wandering outside the room when you said you were going to get a drink? I don't think so. Moral of the story is, don't try to cross your mom.
So, those are ten lessons I learned while in Girl Scouts. As always, thank you for reading!
