Skip to main content

Five Little Brownies

...took an ice skating lesson.

The FIRST little brownie listened carefully to the instructor, performed all the steps with a grimly determined look on her face (but not a single smile), made it twice across the rink, and clumped off the ice at the end of the lesson. "That was hard, and not very fun," she said.

The SECOND little brownie attacked the ice with glee, skinny little legs flailing wildly. She fell a lot, but laughed each time and got right back up. Her technique was not the greatest, but she managed to fly across the ice anyway. She stayed on the rink after the lesson was over, and begged her mom to stay even longer after the allotted two hour Girl-Scout skate was up.

The THIRD little brownie has some kind of natural athleticism which allowed her to grasp proper ice-skating concepts right away. She was cautious, but she was good.

The FOURTH little brownie had spaghetti legs and just could not stay up. She spent most of the lesson falling over or being dragged bonelessly along by the instructor. When the lesson was over she was crying tears of frustration. "But you tried," we told her, "you were so brave for trying!"

The FIFTH little brownie sat quietly through the safety lesson and then burst into tears when it was time to line up to go out on the rink. "I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to," she sobbed, and neither her leaders nor her troop members could change her mind. "You won't get an Ice Skating patch for your vest," the troop leader warned. "I don't care I don't care," she sobbed. So her skates came off and she spent two hours sitting on the bleachers. Occasionally she would say, "Can I really not have a patch?" On the way home she said, "What if you take me ice skating tomorrow? Will I get the patch THEN?" She couldn't understand why the troop leader said no.

Mallory is one of these Five Little Brownies...any guesses as to which?

Comments

Anonymous said…
My guess is #5. Poor Mallory! I wish that she could just let go and have fun.

Mom
aimee said…
I hope it is #2 but I have a feeling it is #5.
H Noble said…
I'm going for 5 as well, and honestly will say that would have been me too. I've never been ice skating, but if you changed the story to roller skating, that's me. Sitting on the carpet wall and wondering how long till we can have birthday cake.

Popular posts from this blog

Whew

When they called Pennsylvania, I knew. When they called Ohio, I knew for sure. But I still got chills up and down my spine when they called it for good. And I have tears in my eyes every time I think of his speech. Last night, I attempted to explain to Mallory why this was such a big deal. (This was after a rather undignified few minutes during which she, Phoebe and I danced around the living room chanting Go-bama, Go-bama!) I tried to explain that not so many years ago, black people couldn't even vote, much less become president. She looked at me in great perplexity. She didn't get it. She didn't get racial prejudice. And now...well, it's not that I believe for a second that she and Phoebe will grow up in a world where prejudice doesn't exist. But they do live in a country where, for one election, it was transcended. This is their world now, and their history being made, and I...I'm just elated.

Crafty Update

I've made a whopping total of two things this summer. A puppy for Phoebe's birthday: And a cell phone case for me: The case needs a bit of tweaking; I'm not happy with the strap. But it was way easier than making a stuffed animal, I'll tell you that much. The girls were on etsy with me last night looking at crochet patterns. Now I have a list of requests a mile long. I'm not sure when I'll have time to get to these new projects, but I'll keep you posted. Because I know you care.

File under: stupid problems to have

I'm going to see Wicked (the musical) in May with my sister- and mother-in-law. I'm excited; I like musicals. In anticipation, I downloaded the soundtrack a few days ago and have been listening to it continually on my ipod ever since. I read Wicked (the book) back when it first came out, but didn't remember much of the plot. So in order to understand what happens in the gaps between the songs in the musical, I turned to wikipedia for a plot summary. Then I clicked over to the synposis of the book to see how it differed from the musical. Reading about the book made me realize that I had pretty much forgotten all of the book. In fact, to be honest, what I remember about the book was that I found it a bit dull. A bit long. A bit too much about the politics of an imaginary country. A bit too full of unsympathetic characters. And then, I remember, I read the author's next book (a retelling of the Cinderella story) and didn't like it much at all. So I never even cons