Camporee

Madison has been a Brownie since we moved here, and Ella has just joined, too, although she won't be an "official" Brownie until the next school year starts in September. Madison always wanted to be a Brownie, and loves being a Brownie. Ella likes the meetings even more than Madison.

Yesterday, we went to Camporee, an event that is held every three years, a big gathering of about 300 Girl Scouts from Brownies all the way up through seniors. It was the Camporee event for the "Millwheel" branch of the Girl Scouts of the Genesee Valley, which I think was mostly from Penfield.

Anyway, it's an event for the seniors to design events for the younger ones, under the supervision of the adult directors. David (I think one of only 3 men there, and certainly the only dad) and I were bus monitors, and patrol leaders of the patrol Ella was in. All the kids were nice enough, but it really gave us a sense of perspective about our own kids: No matter how much we think that they're not "snapping-to-it" quickly enough when we ask them to pay attention, they're better than most of the kids. It amazed me how most of them are pretty quick to ignore you, how you have to go to lengths to corral them and get their attention.

Madison and Ella did four activities: A Sports hour, a "dinosaur dig," crafts, and a nature hike. Except for the sports, which was run by the guy who ran the camp, the rest were designed and run by the older kids. You can't go too far wrong with crafts, and they chose to have the girls paint a tote bag. But most of the rest of what we saw there was really hokey, especially the dinosaur dig. Because each activity mostly took less than the full hour, the girls had down time, which was mostly taken with tetherball and informal tag.

The opening and closing ceremonies were mostly nice, around the flagpole, but they took too long because it was hard to get the girls' attention and they let the time be taken up with lengthy announcements and a little bit of silliness.

When I find people who are able to give my kids great experiences that I can't, I get so grateful, sometimes, that I actually get a lump in my throat. But this wasn't like that at all. Although my kids weren't bored, and had a good time, I didn't feel as though they were necessarily in the hands of something great. And, weirdly enough, I found that the whole thing brought up strange emotions that must have had their genesis in my childhood, but I don't remember what. I remember hating Girl Scout camp. Maybe that was it. But I guess the truth is, and I must whisper this: I don't really like the whole Brownie thing. Any of it. This is one activity that I do just because they wanted to. I don't like bringing them to meetings, I don't like doing activities with the other "Brownie moms," I volunteer for my share of stuff because that's what you do when your kids are in Brownies, but I don't really like it. I really don't like it.. Shhhhhh now don't tell.