I’m already missing my youngest. This is 6th grade camp time, and he’ll be away from us longer than he’s ever been. We followed a detailed checklist to make sure he had everything he needed, and then he made us another checklist for taking care of his fish this week.
He was a little nervous about a few things:
- “So, do the showers have separate doors on them? I don’t want to shower if there are no doors.”
- “Do I have a fever? Do you want to take my temperature just in case?”
- “They said not to bring perfume or cologne because of the bears — do you think my Axe deodorant will be okay?”
- “Do you think I’ll get ‘bus sick’?”
But I think his excitement was overtaking his nervousness, and by the time he saw all his friends this morning, he just bolted away and looked ready to go. Of all three of my kids, he’s definitely the boldest, so he seemed the most ready for a camp experience!
And it might actually snow! These Southern Cal kids are not used to snow, so it would be really exciting for them if it did. I realized a couple of weeks ago that we didn’t have gloves, hat, ski jacket, boots. They were all on the list, but all this time I’ve been thinking — in May? But gosh, it did get cold again, and it’s been snowing up at the camp. I don’t think we’ve ever owned snow boots, so that was always a no-go, but the other things we keep in a closet in case we go up to the mountains for the day. But for some reason, all the gloves and hats were gone (with the exception of a couple of Rene’s), so I scrambled around for a few things at consignment stores and such. And no one had anything like that left in in May! We eventually found a ski jacket shoved in the back of Rene’s closet (that still barely fit Nate); Tilly’s had hats so I splurged and bought him a ridiculously priced ski beanie; and Superman managed to find some gloves of his that will be too big for Nate, but will do. And he’ll be on his own for boots! Ooops. Oh well. At least he has two pairs of shoes with him!
I’m excited for him. I never went to a 6th grade camp, although I went to a leadership camp when I was in high school and had an amazing time.
Do you remember going to camp as a kid?
I also never had the camp experience, but I have to say that I DEMANDED that he sleep on our room last night and I wrestled with him this morning, even though I was running late and I took a lot of self portraits of him and me this morning because I miss that little bugger already!!! And, I must end this now because I’m at work now and getting a little, ahem, “rain” in my eyes and its getting hard to see…
Chris, you are so funny!
I never went to camp either. I had a friend that went every summer (Leilani), it seemed, and I always got so jealous. I don’t know if it was a church thing or what, but I wasn’t in the group and had never been to camp, so was very envious. I can’t believe you have snow there! I bet he will have a blast and it won’t matter that he doesn’t have boots, the gloves are too big and unfortunately, he won’t care that you over paid for his beanie! He is gonna have a blast! I hope he gets to play in the snow!!