We had the best of intentions. I remembered when I went to camp, often Girl Scout camp, when I was little. And while I wanted to learn how to tie all the knots and learn to survive in the wild like the cool Boy Scouts, I trudged through the be-nice-and-friendly skew of Girl Scout cookie sales, the so-necessary basic skill of plastic bracelet brading (how often I use those skills now!), and the occasional toe's dip in the proverbial learning pool what one should do if one's canoe capsizes - all this torture, albeit, in a relatively calm and easy-going environment. So it was with this enlightened sense of being, that I signed up Baby1 for her first camp experience ever, in the safety of our local Y, walking distance and all.
So as you can imagine my surprise, as when I dropped her off to camp this morning with her little backpack and her packed lunch and snacks, that I was faced not by some quiet little camp of kumbaya's around the campfire but by, I'm sure they were...hyenas. Hyenas, numbering no less than 100 to 150, whose collective voices, surrendered to the molecules of air engulfing all of us bewildered parents, carried all the energy generated by successfully-trained parents who gave their kids the prescribed half-a-day's worth of sleep a night, to store up energy enough to tackle the day. Or, at least, the first 30 minutes of screaming at camp - and I could have sworn I saw sound waves bouncing off the concrete walls of the gymnasium this morning.
I don't think I've ever clung onto Baby1 so tightly, as I did this morning. No, actually, there was one other time: I hung onto her for dear life once when she came back to me, at 2 years of age, after bolting from our car towards a very busy intersection right at 5pm on a Friday, smack in the midst of rush hour and too many people trying to get to too many places 15 minutes ago. I thought I'd lose the race for her with the cars, but, luckily, she heard the panic in my voice over the din of car motors, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and U-turned back to me. But today, watching this clan of hyenas running around, screaming and yelling, I was not ready to let my Baby1 go and tackle the world on her own. Judging from her clinging tightly onto me as her eyes spoke of horror at the visions of hyenas dancing in front of her eyes, she wasn't about ready to jump in either. And imagine my horror, when she headed out with the wrong camp, and I had to go fetch her. From the other end of the building. And the counselors for the camp all along my route didn't ask me who I was, request my ID, or ask me where I was going with said child. Hello, paranoia-induced panic!
But in the end, at the end of the day when I picked her up, she seemed all right (read: intact), no worse for the wear. When Hubby asked me for specific drop-off directions this evening for tomorrow morning, however, this is what I told him:
1. Sign-in for camp takes place outside, so look for the organized line of parents and bewildered children, the characteristics of which flip once entering the building.
2. Sign off on one of the multitude of sheets of paper that supposedly correspond to the individual camps going on for the day, on the table in front of the multitude of camp counselors, each of whom seems to know no more than the person next to him or her as to what in the world is going on. Find the sheet of paper yourself while the counselor is asking you which camp Baby1 is in. You'll find it faster.
3. They will tell you to bring your child inside the building. Don't be fooled by the lack of noise from the outside - concrete walls make for amazing insulation.
4. Head into the building, and head toward the crescendo of screaming hyenas.
5. When you enter the concrete room with the screaming hyenas, find one of the camp counselors, preferably not the one who is trying to operate the computer to provide drum and base louder than the screaming hyenas to the speaker system. They do this in an effort to really rev up the hyenas beyond their already revved-up awake state.
6. Try to yell louder than the hyenas to find out where her specific camp group is located. The counselor will no doubt give you the wrong answer, since they've gone deaf with the screaming hyenas and nothing in their training booklets told them about needing to learn to lip-read. When this fails, try asking one of the hyenas. They should know.
7. Try not to panic as you set Baby1 free into the sea of hyenas. Exit the door with your eardrums somewhat intact, and, again, try not to panic. OR, better yet , as I did this morning, and Hubby has decided to do after hearing my rundown of my morning experience: wait until the camps have all been organized and each are exiting the concrete box, and confirm with the counselor leading the specific group of hyenas out of the concrete box that they're leading a) the right camp; and b) the right kids for the right camp.
I'm trying not to be as embarrassingly protective of my kids as my parents were of me. But it's days like this that I eschew all dignity and protect the hell out of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment