First, a lot of talky business, and then I'll show you a bunch of pictures. Deal?
This weekend was pretty Girl Scout-heavy for us. Girl Scout cookies came in, but fortunately I didn't have to pick them up since I have a pretty awesome Cookie Chair helping out our two troops. She has been a tremendous 'save' to the troop and me personally, and I'm so thankful for that! We were supposed to go to the Air & Space Center for a Black History Month celebration that was steeply discounted for homeschoolers, but we would have had to float a check to pay for it, so we opted out. That sucked; it would've been fun. I ended up with some 'free' time that I used to invent some stuff I'll show you in a minute, and then it was time for Chloë and me to go to the church where our troops meet, for a rehearsal.
Sunday morning was Scout Sunday at that church, and there are three services. The girls and I were signed up to help out at the latter two, and Chloë was going to be in the Color Guard (flag duties) for the first of those. For each service, one Scout, one Cub, one Junior, and one Daisy was going to be part of the Guard. They were talking about the Cub and Boy Scout carrying in the flags, but I was quick to rush in and say, "Hey, since you have girls represented here, too, why not let them carry a flag?" I was nice but kind of insistent, because, you know, girls gotta get a fair shake in this world. Well, there was some masked unpleasantness about it, but they took me up on my "suggestion," and that meant the duty fell to Chloë for second service.
Now, I know a lot of you haven't met her in real life, but you've seen me say it before: Chloë is REALLY petite. And she has a delicate air. And those flags are pretty big and heavy. So my suggestion seemed kind of, well, dumb, after they brought the flag in that she was expected to carry. She nearly toppled over when they handed it to her! I started to say, "Well, you know, maybe she shouldn't..." but she quickly spoke up with the whole, "MOM, I can DO it," thing, so I shut myself up.
After that, they practiced all the commands or whatever you call them, in the sanctuary, and she did a swell job. I exchanged numerous looks with the people in charge over that, and they pretty much gave me the thumbs-up and said she did a good job, so my nervousness over the whole situation dissipated. The last thing I wanted was for her to drop the flag or something dire like that, during the service, but she said that, while the flag was pretty heavy for her and she really had to use all her strength to keep it dipped at the appropriate times and stuff, she could DO it, MOM.
We went home after that. We were supposed to be heading out to our own church service after that, but I hadn't slept the night before and was terribly exhausted, so I made the argument that since we were going to be going to church in the morning anyway, couldn't we just skip it that time? Rob grumped a little but agreed. Instead of going to sleep, though, I had to get back to work on creating the stuff I'm fixin' to show you in a sec, and I ended up staying up a whole 'nother night. Let me tell you, massive doses of Diet Coke were required to keep me vertical during the day on Sunday. I managed not to fall asleep during church, though, which is a super-duper-ooper-schmooper good thing.
When it was time, we woke up the kids and scurried on off to the UMC for Scout Sunday. While Chloë was readying herself for the Color Guard, Sophia was put to work handing out bulletins. (This was the only picture I took at church, because I had camnesia and had to use my iPhone and didn't want to be rude. The people in charge took pictures of Chloë and promised I would get copies later.) Soap was instructed to smile, say, "Good morning," and hand everyone a bulletin, but she could barely manage the first two things. She was overcome with an uncommon-for-her case of shyness, but she looked so freakin' adorable anyway that everyone just smiled and commented on that part of things. I mainly stood by her and made sure she wasn't dropping the bulletins all over the place, but she did a couple times anyway. That was okay. Really, she was so cute, I can't even tell you how much.
Rob and the boy-child were in a pew waiting for us. They watched the Color Guard advance and do their duties, and he said Chloë did a stellar job. She remembered all her directions and didn't drop the flag and generally was superb. I'm very proud; I wasn't sure she could do it, and she did. Way to go, Curls!
The service we attended was the Contemporary one, which I enjoyed greatly. We knew some of the songs (well, hymns, I suppose) from our own church, so I sang loudly and freely during those and more hushety-hush during the ones I didn't really recognize. The message was nice but, quite honestly, I didn't really get much out of it like I do at the Vineyard where we go, so I have no plans to switch churches anytime soon. When the pastor (reverend? minister?) called upon all past and present Scouts and families of Scouts to stand, the five of us did so proudly. We sat in our pew and cuddled our sweet babies and generally looked a much nicer family than we really are at home, where we devolve into talking about poop and farting and, between us parents, lots of much more filthy topics.
But I'm not going on that tangent.
After the service, during which it seemed like EVERYONE greeted EVERYONE instead of just the few people around themselves like we're used to, I put my girls back to work. Another one of my Daisies showed up (thank you, G!), so the three of them handed out bulletins at the various sanctuary entrances. Soo many people showed up to this service that they ran out of bulletins. I had to scour the pews for ones the Contemporary folks had left behind! Then I found a full basket of them that I didn't know existed and felt like quite the fool. Anyway.
G and her family stayed for that service, while Team Odette skedaddled on out of there after the doors were closed. We'd done our duty, and we were excused.
Overall, it was super nice, and I was glad to be a part of it. I wore my Leader shirt and khaki pants, so while I wasn't quite in official GS Leader uniform, I was passable and representin' just fine.
I was going to continue with all the other stuff in this same post, but this got a lot more talky and lengthy than I originally planned (what else is new?). Plus I need to go run for a Diet Coke refill. I'll be back with photos and verbiage galore, okey-dokey?
Fin.
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