Patches And Their Placement......

This whole Girl Scout thing is pretty new & foreign to me.

I vaguely remember my Mom making me (yes, against my will) become a Girl Scout only to have the troop leader lady politely, through gritted teeth, tell my Mom that I was no longer welcome at any other meetings.  I can't be sure of what exactly happened to cause my immediate exit from the Girl Scouts but I'm sure it had to do with me refusing to wear something green & girlie & called a 'sash'. 

Fast forward a few years (no reason to add a number here...just fast forward) & I find myself back in the land of Girl Scouts. 

Last year JoJo was a Daisy.  She didn't start in the group right from the beginning of the school year so we were a bit late entering.  I was given the list of items I needed to purchase for JoJo from the Girl Scout store.  On my way there I had this awesome idea that I was going to purchase Girl Scout cookies as a surprise for JoJo but I was unaware that the Girl Scout store isn't the magical land of cookies I had dreamt it up to be in my mind.  There were no cookies to be had b/c it wasn't Girl Scout cookie season.  The very serious, very stern woman behind the register who has been a Girl Scout for 97 years did NOT find me funny in any way when I suggested that just maybe she had a box or two hidden in the back storeroom.

 

Anyway, I purchased all the items needed for JoJo to attend her Daisy meetings & headed home to tackle the patches & their placement.

 

I printed out the picture of the Daisy vest thingy so that I could make sure I placed the correct patches in their correct places.  My OCD kicked in big time & what should have taken me 20 minutes wound up taking me 2 hours b/c it had to be JUST right! 

Anyway, when all was said & done I was super stoked & proud of myself!  The vest thingy was done & it looked awesome!

 

Let's fast forward again shall we?  This time we are fast forwarding to JoJo's first Daisy meeting.  I walk in to pick her up & the troop leaders along with some of the moms start cracking up at me & busting on me.  Yeah, I was just as confused as you are......what could possibly be so funny?  I look around at all the other girl's vest things & they look very different from JoJo's & then I realize why:  they only have a few of the pedals ironed onto their vest thingy b/c they have not completed all the Daisy patch earning projects yet, hence only a few pedals on each vest.  And here comes JoJo, new kid on the block, all cool w/her swagger sporting A VEST THINGY FULL OF FRIGGIN PEDALS!!!!  JoJo's first meeting & I have her all patched up!  No wonder JoJo refused to wear the vest thingy after this.  But nobody kicked her out for that!

 

And that brings me up to now.  JoJo is beginning this year as a Brownie.  She's starting from the beginning so we are not the new kids on the block this year & we have the same instructions as everyone else so if there's "over patching" it's not my fault this time.

 

Head back to the non-cookie selling Girl Scout store to purchase yet another list of patches & pins & a new vest.

 

Last night I decided to tackle the new Brownie vest.

 

I once again had a picture in hand of the placement for patches & pins.  This whole Brownie thing is way easier than the Daisy thing b/c Brownies don't have pedals, it's a Brownie.  But what does that mean exactly?  Is it a brownie you eat?  There wasn't a brownie looking patch I had to buy.  Are they called Brownies b/c the vest is brown?  I have questions dammit!

Anyway, picture in hand, instructions from troop leader on what to transfer over from last year's Daisy vest thingy to this year's Brownie vest.  All good.  That is, until I reach into the pocket of the Daisy vest thingy & come across JoJo's '100+' patch for selling over a 100 boxes of those cookies last year & her cookie patch & another patch for doing something really good (can't be sure what she did that was really good but I'm sure it was really good!) 

 

And now I'm holding these patches in my hand & I say to Ash (Ashley, gf):  "what am I supposed to do with these?"  She tells me that they are supposed to go on JoJo's Daisy vest thingy.  Of course my response is:  "JoJo's not going to wear this anymore, she's graduated, she did that bridge thing, or in her case, she walked across wooden pallets nailed together to look like a bridge."

 

I go on to explain to Ash how back in the day when I was playing traveling soccer, we used to put ALL our patches on our jacket & show them off proudly so why can't I put all of JoJo's patches on her Brownie vest to show them off proudly???  The 2nd look of horror on Ash's face pretty much told me that I was not supposed to do this but I couldn't let it go.  So I went on to explain my reasoning:  proud mom, proud kid.  What if I just ironed them onto the back of the Brownie vest?  Again, another look of horror followed by "You can go right ahead & do that but just be prepared for this vest to remain hanging b/c JoJo won't wear it if you do that." 

 

I hate when she's right.

 

But I still feel strongly about the whole proud patch placement thing!

 

Maybe I should just put the patches on my winter vest b/c really when you break it down:  I'm the one who sold those '100+' boxes of cookies!