Strangely at
BallFiend's school, they don't just take kids from the older year levels on camp, they even take the grade ones! For about the past six months, you could listen in on parent conversations just about anywhere in the school grounds and hear parents agonising over whether to send their little seven-year olds to camp. The teachers however were adamant, they insisted that they could handle it.
There was no (or at least very little) agonising on my part. As soon as I heard that camp for the grade one, two and three students was going ahead, I was lining up
Gran and
GrandPaul to mind
Thumper for the same two nights that BallFiend would be on camp and looking forward to two child-free nights with
DeepSpice (but that's another story).
The day before camp, I helped BallFiend pack his bag, so he'd know what was in it. We chose his clothes and BallFiend placed them into the bag. We packed his toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and sunscream (yes, that's what he calls it and who am I to correct him?). We packed his pyjamas, blankie and Moo-Moo (he still has his blankie and menagerie of soft toys that he likes to sleep with). We practiced unpacking his sleeping bag, climbing in and out, then re-packing the sleeping bag. We talked about looking after his belongings, where to put his dirty clothes, practiced turning the torch on and off... and so on.
Finally the big day arrived...
 |
Excitement builds as the kids wait for the coach to arrive.
(It finally turned up 30 mins late!) |
The aftermath
When DeepSpice and I arrived at school to collect BallFiend today, we found him sitting under the rain-water tank, reading a Tashi book. He refused to stop reading to say hello, he barely even looked up from the book to acknowledge us. So we waited about 5 minutes until he finished reading and then he announced "But I wanted to go to Gran and GrandPaul's house". (Usually on Wednesdays, BallFiend's grandparents pick him up from school as both DeepSpice and I are at work but we'd made special arrangements to take leave from work so we could collect him after camp... coz, you know, we thought he might have missed us and would want to see us.)
When unpacking BallFiend's bag, I discovered he had worn the same clothes for three days running. He had changed his underpants but that was only because he got wet paddling at the beach.
BallFiend's brand new 'angry birds' toothbrush (that he selected himself and was so excited to show off to the other kids) came home in it's same, brand new state. Yep, he had not brushed his teeth for three days straight.
BallFiend told me that he went to sleep wearing his glasses on the second night because he forgot to take them off... "and they didn't even get squashed Mum!".
I didn't bother to ask him too much about camp, knowing that the answer would be "I can't remember". Instead I asked him to draw me a map of the camp to show me where his cabin was. The flood-gates opened...
"I was in yellow cabin, in bed in the back left corner. I was on a bottom bunk and (starts wimpering) I really wanted to go on a top bunk). There was a games room and they had two pool tables and air hockey table and three table tennis tables, and A. (another child) let me watch him play on his iPad but he wouldn't let me have a turn. Outside the games room there was the real, actual cross that Jesus was put on. I know because B. (another child) told me. It even has the real nails in it."
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