Camp

Yesterday I took Beca to camp. Sleepaway camp. Away for a whole week, camp. I feel like she might not come home till Winter Vacation, or she'll reemerge a butterfly, or perhaps she'll come home and think me extraneous, roll her eyes more often. Ori is outside stringing noodles, but it was only last weekend, or maaaaybe the weekend before that, when it was his sister sitting outside, stringing noodles. Coloring paper plates. Painting with shaving cream. Now she is off to camp, where I can't kiss her owies or help her to sleep. Where someone might make fun of her hair or her t-shirt and she'll have to absorb it, where she can't talk to me about the girl who budged in line or stole her toothpaste. My own fears, completely. I'm SURE that she will find ways of telling girls that do mean things that she doesn't like it. And that she'll find lots of kids who are consistently kind. And who love her jokes. I'll just sit home and worry.

I listened to This American Life's prose on Camp - boy did it SUCK. I think they did a good job portreying the kinds of camps that - I believe it was Joyce - was talking about, full of competition and kissing and popularity. I'm just so glad that something else was available. :D Thank goodness for smart people who like to do fun stuff with their kids...this camp was actually started as a family camp, and then they added a few weeks of kids only camp. It still has family camp, but only a week or so in August, now. It's a wonderful, small camp on a beautiful lake in the westermost Adirondack Park. The tall trees are shady, the cabins are log and sturdy. The trails are brown earth, the woods teem with life. It is a vibrant place with friendly people and interesting challenging things for the kids to do.

As I burrow my toes into the belly of my dog, who lounges under the computer table while I type, I am thinking about bug juice and color wars and war canoes and date night. I only hope that she survives childhood without them. Actually, the bug juice at Camp Unirondack was pretty tasty!