*Monday's Scout Meeting*

Well our Brownie troop grew by 5 more girls, so we had a total of 8 girls Monday night! Everyone seemed really nice and eager to be there. Jennifer and I had had alot planned for that evening but with getting everyone registered and introduced and such.. we ran out of time faster than I had hoped. Anyway, while we waited for all the girls to show up, the girls that were already there sat at the table and drew pictures.. they all talked and got along really quickly, like they had already known each other for years! (i wish i was that outgoing lol :-P One or two of the girls were really shy, but they opened up by the end of the night. I remember being that girl back in Girl Scouts :-P So anyway, we have this group of eight 8-year old girls and they have SO MUCH energy its ridiculous. I wish i had HALF the energy they do :-P I had forgotten how hyper kids that age are... and how hard it is for them to sit still and pay attention. We went out into the hallway and got into a big circle (which took 3 or 4 times yelling at them basically to get them to quiet down enough to hear what we were doing) Then we went around the circle and everyone said their name and 1 thing about themselves. We taught them the GirlScout sign, the GirlScout Promise, and then did the friendship squeeze. We then told them it was snack time and they all went SCREAMING and running back to the room. Well we share 1 HUGE room with the older girl scouts, and their leaders were telling us "SHHHHH!" on the way in the door but we just looked at them helpless... Jennifer and I are very similar... we are both quiet, somewhat shy, and hate having to yell or discipline. My own mother says Im not hard enough on my kids :-x But anyway... we finally got the kids settled down and handed out snacks. I had brought the snacks this week, and i got packs of peanut butter crackers, and some candycorn. Jennifer had forgotten that id brought snack and brought chocolate chip cookies! So we decided to hand it all out. We thought we might as well overload them on sugar and send them home to their own parents! HAHA! :-P So during snack we went over the History of GirlScouts. We were supposed to let the girls act out the story, but by this time we only had about 10 mins left of the meeting. So we just talked and then recited the Girl Scout promise as a closing to the meeting. They left such a mess all over the table from snacktime-- they are really supposed to clean up after themselves, but they all ran off when their parents got there... so the cleaning up got left to us. I think next week we need to go over the responsibilities of the Girls with them :-P Jennifer and I have a leader training seminar next Monday night,and I hope that will give us lots of info on what we're supposed to do and how we handle things better. I was a Girl Scout for SEVERAL years growing up but i never knew being a leader could be so tough! I never was much of a leader though, i feel uncomfortable telling other people what to do and guiding them. So hopefully Ill gain some confidence this year.. lets hope so! :)