Ice Skating: Another Holdiay Event, Another Bloody Face Incident

Tuesday of Christmas Break, I thought it would be fun to go to Ice Skating and enjoy a little fellowship with friends and the balcony girls.  We could get some winter exercise and have some fun. After introducing Miss M and Miss A to skating last winter, they have been begging to go again.

We had a fabulous twenty minutes of skating on a nearly empty ice rink and Miss A was getting pretty confident in her skills and Miss A was enjoying her friends.  Off to the side of the rink, we noticed a little practice arena where you can "skate" on dry land and practice up on your skills.  Our only problem was didn't realize that the "hill" was actually suppose to be climbed up to practice "walking on ice" and not slide down. 

On her second "run" down, Miss A skidded out and fell on her face putting her two front teeth through her bottom lip.  Thankfully, I was standing right there and quickly applied pressure and cupped my hands to catch the flowing river of blood.  Miss A was a real trooper and other than a few tears, remained calm allowing my friend H to access if we needed to head to the ER for stitches.  Thankfully, we were able to stop the bleeding and see that besides a deep cut there was no real damage to her teeth or lip. 

Having already had one set of stitches on a lip and realizing that "they" don't really like to stitch a lip because it's too moist; we just keep the lip closed and moist.  Let's just say that Miss A was thrilled when she learned no Dr visit would be required.  However, she decided that she was done skating.  She told me that she would not be ice skating ever again.  When Papa came to rescue her (thanks Dad), she was more than happy to go home.

My father being able to come and retrieve Miss A is really only one part of the blessings in this story. By God's provision, I had asked another mother stay to "help" and she just happens to be a nurse.  I could not have asked for a better set of hands to help out in a crisis.  I got the biggest kick out of H when she went to town telling the Ice Arena that they needed to update their First Aid Kit or close their doors.  She was adamant that they were not prepared for an injury.

Maybe that's why Miss A was offered a free Sprite and all the ice cubes she wanted!  By the end of the day, Miss A had amended her previous claim that she would not ice skate ever again to the new philosophy that "I'll give it one my try, but if anything happens I'm done with skating forever."  Gotta love that she will at least give it another try.

With any luck, our "holiday injury curse" is over for this Christmas Season!  You never know!

Balcony Girls: Come On Ring Those Bells!

Bell Ringing Take One.  Our family loves to "Ring Those Bells" during the Christmas season and we already have the date set on our December calendar, but the Balcony Girls really wanted to ring bells too.  Of course on the date we chose, a few were unable to attend, but our small but mighty enthusiastic crew covered two sets of doors at a grocery store on one of the busiest days of the year; the Monday before Thanksgiving.

Did I mention that it was "Free Turkey Day!" It is the day when if you buy a ham you get a free turkey.  Lets just say the crowd was bustling.  During our three hour shift, the girls were enthusiastic, crazy silly, and very festive.  There was singing; Gobble Gobble Turkey Song, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and some form of Turkey Blessings.
 
When another mom showed up to lend support and brought extra kids along, the competition between the two Red Kettles grew intense.  I was just thrilled that all it took to "wind" this crew up was Hot Chocolate and Cookies!  I'm sure the Kettles were getting more action due to the cute factor of these girls.  Charm might be deceiving, but when you use it support a good cause it can't be all that bad can it?

Nothing brings you greater joy than giving back and, to see the faces of the balcony girls that afternoon, you could tell they were catching that spirit of giving. 

My takeaway from the day is that next month when I ring bells - I'm wearing my snow boots!  My tootsies were cold even if my heart ands spirit were overflowing with warmth and joy.

Of course it was freezing.  Windy. Cold. 

Balcony Girls: Sweet and Sour Words

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but I'm loving the Balcony Girls materials and walking along this journey with a special group of girls.  Our meeting topic on Monday was gossip.  Whooza.  If that doesn't hit home with a group of preteen girls (and their leader), I don't know what would. 

Junior high can be rough.  The comments and rumors that go around in a typical day can eat away at a young girls self esteem. My goal for this meeting was to help the girls stop the gossip and to help them think of ways that they could end a conversation that was going "sour" easily.

We played the game "telephone" while the girls were working on their fleece blankets for badges and it was hilarious the way the words changed as girls whispered ear to ear.  I think at one time the phrase was "I like kicking soccer balls" and by the end of the line, the new phrase was " Cantaloupe is a yellow fuzzy ball."  Nothing like seeing how words can get mixed up as they spread.

What I really enjoyed was seeing the heart of these girls; they get it. They know that words can hurt and that half of what they "hear" at school is nothing but gossip and false truths.  It's hard to see through gossip when you are eleven years old because it sounds so fun and innocent, but these girls really grasped how much it can be sour.  They grasp how words can pierce and things can quickly snowball out of control  Many have been on the bad end of the gossip and hurtful words.  Each girl had great ideas on how to stop a bad conversation and how what might sound like caring is really gossip.  These balcony girls have deep insight.

I loved it when the girls asked if that's why the snack was Dreamsicle Slushes since they were both sweet and sour; just like gossip.  Words that might sound sweet and really meant to be sour.  Are these girls the best or what.

To keep it real, they did complain a little this week.  They couldn't believe that I expected them to cut out their own fleece blankets. They thought I would do the hard work for them like I have before. I told them I full trust in them that they could lay it out, pin it, cut it and tie the knots.  I believed in them.

I think it was my own daughter who said that I sounded so sweet saying it like they were growing up, but it was a little sour that they then had to do all the work! Love these girls.

Balcony Girls: Lesson Two, Pumpkin Crafts and Confidence

I'm really loving leading this group of sixth grade girls through the Balcony Girls material.  Yesterday was our second meeting of the year and, since it was a week before Halloween, I used the fourth lesson which included an adorable craft you make with pumpkins.

Thankfully, this meeting did not involve a "life lesson" for the leader. 

The topic was Confidence and from the look on the faces of the girls as we sat around the dining room table, it hit home.  I loved the visual of crumpling up a crisp twenty dollar bill and asking the girls what the value of the bill was now that it was all crumpled up and messy.  The examples of gossip, rumors and friends breaking your trust as a way you might get "messy"  really struck a cord with each girl. 

Making our Pumpkin Flower Pots and getting all "messy" on the deck and digging out the guts of the pumpkin so that we could put a little "beauty" back into it was a great visual.  My back deck was a mess of pumpkin seeds and potting soil at the end, but it matched my previously clean kitchen with the remnants of the "homemade apple pies" we made as our snack using biscuits and apple pie filling. Yummo!  But a little mess was so worth it in order to connect with these girls and pass on these life lessons.

It does my heart good to be leading these girls through our Balcony Girls/Scouting year.  Next on the agenda is to make homemade fleece blankets to display our GS patches.  We've even talked of creating our own balcony girl patches so we can remember these lessons in the years to come.  Better get my creative juices flowing.

Balcony Girls Begins

We are looking to try something new with Miss M's Girl Scout troop this year so we are incorporating the Balcony Girls curriculum from Sally Couglin and I'm loving it.  This is now our seventh year of being "together"' and, while the numbers have shrunk, most of these girls have been with me from the very beginning.

Last year when M made the jump to the junior high the dynamics of our troop changed, I'll admit I struggled with the girls and how best to make it fun, relevant, and life impacting.  Seeing all the drama that marks pre-teen and teenage girls, I wanted to help these girls handle the changes ahead and also just have fun being girls.

I'll admit I'm not a camper. I'm also not one who has a lot of domestic skills in my back pocket that I can pull out and share how to sew, carve wood, build a fire or rough it in the wilderness.  I'm a suburban mom and it shows.  However, one thing that Girl Scouting taught me a young girl was how to be a leader, how to stand up to peer pressure, and to be confident in my abilities.

Balcony Girls takes a lot of these skills and life lessons that I've so much wanted to share with my girls and puts it in a lesson that can be done once a month/or more in an hour and half and includes a snack, lesson and often a craft to drive home the concept.  It does all the work for me!  Plus, because of the way the lessons are layed out, I can use them in the confines of Girl Scouting and the girls will get the best of both.

So this year, we are bringing the troop into my home once or twice a month right after school. Our first lesson was on caring and we talked about how to build people up rather than tearing them down. We role-played giving people our "applause and cheering for them" and felt what it felt like to be the one giving and the one receiving.  We talked of filling up each other's  buckets and realizing why some girls act "mean" or bully when all they are really looking for is someone to fill them up a little.

Let me tell you these girls filled my bucket this day.  It had been a rough afternoon and I had so much fun chatting with the girls, giggling, and learning.  Each girl got a special Balcony Girl journal that they wrote a little something about our lesson that I'm keeping for them (in a locked drawer with no peaking) each time.  Sitting on the back deck, they had a chance to just think for a minute what it meant to be a person who cared.

Two girls told me that this was the best meeting they had been to ever.  It was intimate, private and they really connected.  Miss M said it just felt right to be in our home doing this rather than the industrial cafeteria at the school.  We've planned a tea party for later this month, we'll be making a blanket to for our Girl Scout badges, and have some great ideas for field trips we want to work around the GS and Balcony Girl materials.

New life into a old troop; fabulous.  Life lessons shared among friends and with an adult who is crazy about the young women they are becoming. Priceless.