Hello Mother, hello Father…

Back from a brief hiatus that involved some work craziness, three days of cleaning out the basement and attic (fun!) and an anniversary trip to Vegas for K and I. Anyway…

So, the boys have been going to camp this summer and appear to be loving it. We drop them off first thing in the morning and they come home in the evening happy, tired and filthy. In between, they swim, hike, play games, do arts & crafts and go boating. Not a bad deal. The brochure we read about the camp mentioned archery too (which I foolishly mentioned to the boys), but that appears to be reserved for older kids (much to my kids dismay).

They are enjoying the swimming most of all, I think. The boys are water babies and love to be in the water. The have swim lessons in the morning and then have free swim in the afternoon. It’s all in a lake, unlike their past pool lessons, but they don’t seem to mind. The camp has a structured system of lessons and tests each week to show what each camper has learned. There is a segregated deep end which a swimmer must pass a test to be allowed in to. We needed to stock up on bathing suits, though. Swimming 5 days a week on two bathing suits each wasn’t going to cut it. Thankfully, a sale at Old Navy helped out there. Sadly, the remainder of the day at camp seems to be cutting short any long life these suits may have. Did I mention they come home filthy?

The games they play sound familiar, but have all been updated since I last played them. There’s ‘Doctor Dodgeball’ where certain players are doctors and can bring tagged players back into the game. ‘Drip, drip, drop’ is an update of duck, duck, goose that involves either dripping water on the person’s head, or upending a cup of water on them. ‘Fishy, fishy, cross my ocean’ is apparently the new name of Sharks & Minnows? ‘Capture the Flag’ is still around, but sounds a bit less cut-throat than I remember.

We slather the boys in sunscreen in the morning and they each have to carry a can of spray sunscreen with them at camp. I questioned the spray (just doesn’t seem to cover as well), but it was explained that the counselors can only help kids if they have spray sunscreen as they’re not allowed to help kids rub anything on. Time marches on in disquieting ways. At any rate, they both have tans to die for. M less so than C as he prefers wearing swim shirts to going topless, but they are each darker than I have ever been. C enjoys telling people than I am jealous of his tan (I am). I enjoy telling people about the day-glo butt he has as he runs to his room naked after his shower at night. We have had some minor sunburns, but otherwise the SPF 50 seems to be working well.

They are exhausted each day. We pick them up after camp in the evening and if we can’t entertain them or feed them immediately, they begin to drift off on the couch. M has crashed pretty hard some days, but they each roll into bed at night and are asleep almost immediately. Most mornings we have to wake them up, though weekends are still fair game for alarmingly early mornings. We’re ending their camp terms a few weeks before school starts so they can recover before classes start. I sometimes wonder how they don’t fall asleep in the shower each night, but they’re filthy and shower they must.

Have I mentioned they come home dirty? Filthy, really. We need to buy C all new white socks for gym class as just about every pair he owns have come home a dull shade of brownish grey. Try as we might, the color won’t wash out. Clorox has even given up on saving these things. No explanation has been forthcoming as to what happens to these things. Their bathing suits, even the new ones, are starting to discolor. Their backpacks are likely not going to make it to school this year, their lunch boxes already gave up the ghost. Sneakers will be sacrificed at month’s end. The dirty I can handle, it’s the dirt I wonder about. They bring home dirt. Sand, I guess, but not beach sand, lake sand? Tiny gravel is what it looks like to me. It is in their hair, their pockets and well… their butts. Practically every day, they have sand up their bathing suits, between their cheeks, making it hard for them to sit. I have asked how it gets there, but to no avail. Somehow, the sand just gets in there and the don’t seem to notice until they get home. This is a new one to me.

My one issue with this camp is the rogue black hole they seem to have roaming around sucking things out of existence. We have now lost four water bottles, a shirt, some Pokemon cards, our membership card and just today, a sock (but just one). These things just magically vanish. Sometimes they briefly reappear, but the black hole sucks them back in quickly. There is a lost and found box, but no luck so far on our lost items. I know I expect too much from a 5 and 7 year old to track every step of their day, but really? How do you lose one sock? How do you go to camp with a water bottle D-clipped to you bag, but only come home with the D-clip and the top of the bottle? Mysterious.

At any rate, it sounds better than my memories of camp, so, mission accomplished.

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