This is not a course in parenting. Instead it's a cry for help, from one parent to another. Because there's no manual for this stuff, and today is one of those days when I regret this bitterly.
So camp started this past Monday and while my three-year-old cheerfully went around the corner to a familar place with familiar faces, my five-year-old boarded the big yellow school bus for the very first time with her little school friend and off they went for eight hours of pure campy fun-in-the-sun.
Except notsomuch.
I couldn't wait for that bus to pull up at 4:30, and eject my disheveled but happy kid from its clutches. Finally I saw the bus (albeit 20 minutes late) and kids started trickling out, but no Alex. Adrenaline pumping, I hopped on the bus to seek her out only to find a tear-stained little girl seated in the second row.
"No one called my name out," she told me tearfully.
Mama bear took over and I was pissed. Do you know me personally? Pissed does not look good on me.
The following morning, she boarded the same bus, perhaps not as eagerly as the day before, and off she went. I called camp to let them know what condition Alex was in when she was returned to me and was assured it would be taken care of.
"And no one took her to the bathroom all day. Oh, and she came home in the same bathing suit I sent her in." Ever hear of crotch rot? Ew.
Fast-forward to pick-up on day two. Again, I got a crying kid, this time she was getting herself off of the bus. She was dirty and drained and sweaty, I immediately went into Mommy overdrive.
"Why is she crying?" I asked the 16-year-old boy/kid who was the bus counsellor. He explained that her little friend had stayed in camp with her big sister for family night so she was sad riding without her. They hooked her up with another kid to ride with, to no avail.
Ok, good enough reason.
Day three - she's totally not stoked to get on the bus.
I pick her up at 4:30 - crying - her on the outside, me on the inside.
OhmygodI'mtheworstmotherever.
This morning I could not peel this child from her bed. It's not that I was that surprised based on the previous days drama, it's just that this is so not my kid. My kid loves fun, she loves the lake and is being forced encouraged to embrace nature and the outdoors through weekend fishing expeditions and lots of grimy lake swims.
I begged her, pleaded with her, made deals with her. Please get dressed and I'll pick you up from camp. No bus. Never mind the 40 minutes of traffic I'll sit in either way. I'll do it. Just PLEASE GET UP!
Nope. Her will outlasted mine and finally I took the little one to her clean, fun camp and left Alex behind with the nanny. I went for a run outside to relieve myself from some of the fire I was feeling on my insides and then answered a call from the camp.
"Bring her, we'll talk to her, we'll ease her into it, we'll call you if we need you," the director assured me.
I came home, talked her into it, and off we went.
So far, so good. No teary phone calls, no emergent SOS's. Good news, I guess. But I feel like only a happy dose of klonopin could calm me today, to the point where I cannot wait to get that kid home.
I'm not that mother that forces a miserable child to board a camp bus. No tough love here. She's five and is experiencing a totally new thing. I get it. But as a person who crossed off the calendar days until the next summer from the day I returned, how can she be resisting it so much? Whose kid is this? And what do I do?
The report from camp this afternoon was good. She's playing happily on the beach. For now.
Cross your fingers for me tomorrow morning.
Heartbreaking! I was welling up just reading it. Sullivan was not happy to join the other kids on his first day of camp but they were SO good to him and called us that day to say he was fine. We told him he could call us but he never did - instead, when he got home, he told me "I was going to call but I was doing so many fun things that I forgot!”
But Alan did take a picture of him sitting on the sidelines before he joined in. It is heartbreaking but I know it ended well.
I just have to share it - you can't see well, but his counselor is next to him.
http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac77/mamakazi/631591236_photobucket_9301_.jpg
Posted by: Erin | July 15, 2011 at 12:34 PM
Oh and I hope Alex begins to love it!
Posted by: Erin | July 15, 2011 at 12:35 PM