Whirlwind

Remember when I had staff arrive and I said that camp was officially here? And then kids arrived and I said camp was officially officially here. I take both of those back. I am wearing the maroon sweatpants I slept in and a lime green tee shirt. I can't remember when I showered last and right before lunch, I was absolutely sure I was going to pass out and I realized it was probably because I didn't eat dinner the night before or breakfast this morning. My life is a whirling tornado of to-do lists, camp songs and needy staff... camp is OFFICIALLY here.

Obviously sitting down to blog in the middle of it seems like a waste of time, except that I think it's probably time to take a moment to collect my thoughts and take some deep breaths, so that's my plan.

The end of last week went well. The first week is always a learning week and last week we had 1st-6th graders, so it was also a really young crowd, which means more tears, more meltdowns, more lost items, more repeating yourself. I love the first week, because the staff usually walks around looking absolutely shocked and in awe, and throughout the week, you can actually see the light bulbs going off above their heads as they realize what I meant during training when I said to be specific and prepare ahead of time. At the end of the week, one of my best counselors ran up to me and said, "do you have 8 quarters? I can pay you back..." I said yes and asked what activity he was doing.

"In hindsight, this was probably a poor choice, but I told the boys (he had ten 8 year olds) if they sat down and were quiet, I would give them each a quarter... I know, bad idea..."

In ten years of camp, that was not a strategy I'd heard before. Hilarious. Pure gold. I gladly gave him the quarters and encouraged him to cash out his paycheck and just carry around a can of change for the rest of the summer.

The week ended with little trauma and no further paying off of campers. We had a staff de-briefing and I literally RAN out of camp, because I had to go home for the weekend and my dad was not-so-patiently waiting to give me a ride as my car is still in the office parking lot from a month ago.

We hit a significant amount of traffice and the puppy desperately wanted to rest her drooly mouth on his leg which caused a bit of conflict between them, but eventualy, puppy and I made it home where I got to watch several tivo-ed episodes of John and Kate Plus 8 and relax for the evening. The next morning, I had to drop Olivia off for eye surgery at 8 am, spent most of the morning rushing around, buying stuff for camp and running errands, picked Olivia up, and then rushed off to a wedding. I got stuck in traffic, and ended up sitting, stopped, for 40 minutes (the length of time it should have taken me to get to the church), missed the wedding, but arrived just in time to walk through the receiving line and tell her what a beautiful ceremony it was. I felt terrible for leaving the recovering puppy, but luckily my wonderful mother went to my house to sit with her while I was at the reception, hanging out with old camp friends and eating cheesecake. Yesterday, I woke up early, ran 15 more errands and then headed back to camp in time for a quick staff meeting and campers arriving.

Right about the time the campers started arriving, so did the rain, and so we checked kids in during a downpour. When the bus arrived, half of the staff and I made an assembly line and literally RAN up and down the hill to the dining hall, to bring all of the luggage from the bus inside while it down poured and the other half of the staff lead the kids in songs and games. When we were finished moving luggage, I was so impressed to walk inside and see the kids organized into circles, happily singing. Despite having about 30 more kids than last week, the staff are more confident, organized and seem to have the hang out what's going on. We also have 4th-9th graders, which is a nice change from the little ones.

At dinner, we ran out of spaghetti noodles, and so I was in the kitchen with our frantic Assistant Cook, who seemed to think I was going to hit him the way he was cowering, but eventually the second batch was done and kids were fed and the schedule wasn't too far off.

Other than a mile-long to-do list and being sick, everything is going very well today and week 2 is off to a great start!