This week's camps brought a startling realization. My kids are growing up!
Just a couple of years ago, they were clingy and cried on the first day of camp. In fact, Smunch memorably screamed his way through every day of the first several minutes of gymnastics camp a few years ago. This year was a stark contrast.
First thing Monday morning, I loaded the kids in the van and drove Smunch to his first full-day multi-sport camp. From 9am to 3pm every day, he'd be playing baseball, basketball and flag football.
I had to wait around a long time while the camp director waited for other parents to arrive so she could make all of her announcements. In the meantime, the other coaches had gathered a group of kids out on the field and were starting a game. "Why don't you go out and join them?" I asked Smunch. He set his bag down and took off without a glance back at me.The city somehow totally over-enrolled this camp, so they had 50 kids instead of 35. Smunch, at 7, was at the very bottom of the age range and he's still a small guy on top of that. Scoring in basketball is a major accomplishment for him with these hoops, but do you think it made any difference?
Nope. They were long days, but he had a great time and came home exhausted and somewhat grumpy. Ready to do nothing..aka watching baseball replays on the computer ad nauseum...for a couple of hours.
My next stop each morning was at Mam's nature camp. I tried without success to get Smunch interested in doing this camp too. "No, Mom," he insisted. "I'm not interested in NATURE. I'm interested in SPORTS!" O.K., fine. At least I've got one kid who likes a well-balanced assortment of camps.
She played games, made necklaces, painted rocks, met animals in the petting zoo, tie dyed a T-shirt and watched a wildlife presentation that included a golden eagle, a kestrel, a porcupine and some kind of large cat that I couldn't get a straight answer on. It had spots, I gather. She got to have all that fun in this pretty little spot that you'd never guess is just blocks from the local downtown.
She was quite literally a happy camper. She didn't know a single other kid there, but it didn't matter. She ran to join her group the minute we got there and made another new best friend. These last couple of photos are from her performance in the last day's sing-a-long.
We've got another busy camp week coming right up. I really need to make sure I don't schedule us for so much stuff next year. I hope they feel like they had a crazy fun summer and not just a crazy one!
1 comment:
I LOVE the park that Mam had her camp at. Nice letterboxes there, too! Brian and I even checked it out as a possible wedding location, but passed on it.
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