Remember Camp?

I dropped my daughter off at summer camp this morning. It's only a day camp. I wasn't ready to admit that she's big enough to do sleep away camp. It's the next best thing, though. It starts before breakfast and ends after dinner.

I never know with my kids. With all their mood, temperament, and health issues, I never know if something will be The Best Thing Ever, or if it will be a nightmare of epic proportions. The descent into epic crazy happens on a fairly regular basis. There's a mathematical equation for determining the odds that your kids will freak out about something, but it's complicated, and seeing as it's summer and all, I won't get into the details. It's basically that for each kid present, the probability of meltdown increases to the infinity-ith degree. It's pretty solid math. Ask a math teacher to explain it to you.

So dropping Tater Tot off at camp was a trifle nerve wracking for all of us.

There were several factors stacked against us:

1. Hobbes stayed home. Hobbes goes everywhere with her. If he's left home, she begs to go back for him. For the duration of the trip. If he's left somewhere, heart stopping wails clog our ears until we find him. Sleep will not come unless he's next to her. But today she decided to leave him home. She's big now, she told us. It would be better not to carry him around at camp, in case he got lost or sunburned. 

Besides, now I can take him with me during the day! All day! Everywhere! What a treat for me... 

Hanging out with his other best friend.

        

Getting some breffy in the drive-thru. Not all of us
get a fancy camp breakfast!

            

2. Tater is NOT a morning person. Under the best circumstances, she and I will willingly roll out of bed around eleven. Noon is better. Best is when we can sweet talk the boys into serving all our meals in bed while we alternate between napping and reading. Camp is EARLY!

3. Camp is unknown. My kids often find themselves surprised and mildly confused that new things can be, wait for it... fun! It's hard to see into the unknown and anticipate good things when you are constantly battling with anxiety, mood disorders, and shyness. I'm amazed at how brave they are when they do try new things, but it doesn't come easy for any of us. And when one of them sets his or her mind against doing something, usually at the very last possible second, there is No Going Back. (Reference: The Ear Piercing Debacle of 2013, The Great Hiking Hiatus of 2011, The Swim Lesson Lesson of 2009, etc.)

We were nervous. She was nervous. Hobbes wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure he would've been nervous, too.

Hobbes slept all day, but I kept praying that Tater would have an amazing day.

And you know what? She did! It was great. She absolutely loves it.

That's an off the charts GREAT day kind of face!

This is the face that met me at the end of the day. A happy, laughing, sun kissed, freckly face. Tired from a day that rated a 35 on a scale of 1 to 10. So now, camp isn't an unknown anymore, and we have one more awesome success story.