I Pledge My Head

Lately, Eli has been pestering me to join 4-H.  Not so much for what it teaches but because her BFF Olivia is in 4-H and heaven forbid Eli miss out on ANYTHING her friends are doing.  Add to that, the 4-H leaders are requesting the honor of my presence as a co-leader. 

I have a single-minded response to both of these:  OVER MY DEAD AND BLEEDING BODY!

You see, I am a 4-H survivor, er, alum.  Yes, once upon a time, I "pledged my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service and my health to better living for my club, my community, my country, and my world".  Twenty years later, I am a half-crazed Momzilla so you can see how far pledging my head got me in life. 

I suspect my mother enrolled me in the torture of 4-H because she wanted to see me, as well as her other six daughters, domesticated into the Stepford version of Proverbs 31. 

Instead, her eight children turned out like this:

In our defense, we came from a church that did a lot of intermarrying so the gene pool may have had some cross-contamination. 

But I digress...

Not that I didn't make a valiant effort in the domestic arts.  By the time I came along (the 7th kid in), Mom had handed over sewing instruction to my oldest sister Beth.  I was sent packing for two weeks up to the mosquito-infested state of Minnesota to gain instruction on how to operate the infernal sewing machine and serger. 

This is me putting in the stitches (only sewing over my thumb a few times) under the glamorous country blue and dusty rose wall decorations that swathed my sister's house in the mid-80s. 

This is me taking OUT the stitches (yet again).  My sister would usually give up and tell me to go watch her kids while she efficiently whisked this number through her machine. 

And to make matters more humiliating, Mom also entered me in the "clothing review" in which you had to model the outfit you made.  And write fetching commentary to be read while you pranced in front of the sparse crowds of other moms who made their kids take 4-H projects to the fair.

I am sure that I wrote something along the lines in "Stepping out this fall in a lovely knee-length polka dot skirt is Jane." when I should have written "Behind those ginormous tortoise-shell-framed glasses is Jane who hasn't realized that Keds should never be the shoe of choice to accessorize any outfit, no matter how homemade." 

Of course, my sister Mary took to sewing like a duck to water and had to show off her mad skills by making a prom dress:

She also had figured out the Big Bang theory and had her ears pierced.  Life was so unfair back then. 

Alas, despite all the baking, sewing, and craft-making elementary years, I am still domestically inept and have emotional scars from my time in 4-H.  I think my Squirrels have enough reason to need therapy so we'll skip 4-H for them.  Plus, ADHD and a sewing machine...now THERE'S a recipe for disaster.