While Everyone Else is Excited About Cookie Time.....

.....the rest of us need a support group.

"Hi.  My name is Emily, and I am the mother of a Brownie Girl Scout.  That's not the bad part.  I am also the troop leader.  I haven't seen my kitchen table in a week, and won't see it for another 4.  I have 65 cases of Girl Scout Cookies scatter around my house, and that isn't counting the ones in my car that I need to deliver, and the ones I haven't picked up from the council.  My nose is running, and I am coughing from walking up and down the block, listening to the words 'HI!  I am with Girl Scout Troop XXXX, would you like to help me go to camp?"  My daughter's goal is to sell 2,000 boxes of cookies, and I am using $2,000 worth of gas helping her reach her goal.  What does she get?  A stuffed owl and a trip to camp!  What do I get?  A migraine."

All together now..."WELCOME, EMILY!"

Its hard work, but someone has to do it!  The hardest part of it all is keeping Barb Wire Man and Little Man out of the cookies.  I haven't even added up my personal order, yet, because I keep having to add to it.  It is fun, though.  Flower is super excited.  She throws her little sash on, proud of the 20 some-odd patches she has, and goes door to door.  That girl puts Kirby salesmen to shame.

It was unavoidable, I suppose, this life I lead as a Girl Scout Troop Leader.  My mom was mine, her mom was hers.  I come from a long line of women who's houses turn into a cookie distributorship.  I'm thinking about asking my husband how hard it would be to load his semi truck up and drive up and down the streets.

You know how "they" say that childbirth is so rewarding, once you see your child, you forget about birth pains?  Well, Girl Scout Cookie Time must be the same.  Every year, I forget how time consuming, stressful, and overall pain-in-my-butt that it is, and sign up to do it all over again.

Then again, I know how rewarding it is for Flower.  I mean, after all these years, I am still close to some of the girls that were in my troop.  My mom is still close to some of the girls in her troop.  And we are all women who know we can do whatever we put our minds to.

"Come on, girls, let's sell those cookies!  We can go to camp for free if we sell enough!"

Oh crap....I just remembered....I have to take them all to camp too.....

Thankfully, Gunnar won't be in Girl Scouts.

I'm sorry, what did you just say?  Boy Scouts?