Bridging

On Thursday, Abby "bridged" from Daisy Girl Scouts to Brownie Girl Scouts and received her new brownie uniform.  She was pretty excited about the whole experience (and also about the brownies at the reception), which made me happy since I was in charge of organizing and running the event for two Daisy troops. I wanted the ceremony to be short and fun, but still a little meaningful. Not to dwell too much on the brownies at the reception, but they were some seriously good brownies.  One of the other moms made them -- you take a box of brownie mix and cook it following the directions on the box for half of the time.  Then, pull the pan out of the oven, crumble 6 graham crackers, 1.5 cups of mini marshmallows, and some Hershey bars onto the top of the brownies, and pop them back into the oven for 15 minutes.  Holy Moley.  Smores on top of brownies.  Definitely something worth remembering.  As was the ceremony, of course, I hope.  Grandma and Pops graciously babysat Ben and Caroline so I didn't have any extra helpers at the Bridging Event or Awards Ceremony afterwards.

I find that volunteering always seems like a good idea until the actual week of the event hits, and then all the extra errands and work send me a little too close to the edge. Running errands with Ben is just plain exasperating with all the touching and escape attempts.  Caroline and Abby are able to walk around stores with me now without needing to handle and/or request all the merchandise, but we're just not there with Ben yet.  So, what should be a five minute stop to Staples to pick up blue posterboard for a pond turns into at least 15 minutes of me saying "No".  And, why does EVERY STORE have to put candy at the checkout? Just to torture the moms?  Lollipops and chocolate at Staples?  Entire candy display and full selection of dried meat products at Kinko's?  No thanks! Just office products, please?!

A less celebrated but still noteworthy transition event this week:  our little robins fledged their nest!  Although I initially thought there was only one little robin, there were actually three babies, who had their heads peeking out of the nest all week.  It seemed like things were getting pretty tight in the nest, and sure enough, they took off yesterday.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to watch the first attempt at flying -- but I happened to catch one of the babies (see the juvenile plumage) standing on the edge of the nest.  I can't help but wonder what kind of things go through its little bird brain before it tests its wings for the first time.  Do birds get scared?  Have self doubt? Or just trust their instinct?  Based on the length of time it was standing on the edge, it seemed to me that it was thinking about something...

Getting Read to Take the Plunge