Wednesday, June 25, 2014

One more day, one day more in the woods

179/365

I was still shaky about Wednesday night's stress and meltdown when Thursday came around.  Wednesday night was the turning point.  It was when I realized the boys were exhausted, and I wanted to go home.  I dressed them all cute in their tie-dye shirts before we headed to Camp.  It was Chris's day to ride horses, so he had to wear jeans, although it was 95 with about 95% humidity, even though it had rained the night before.  It didn't cool it down much.


All three boys were ready to go gangbusters to camp.  



Jake was ready to go in his backpack, and everyone was happy.  
There hadn't been a ton of those moments. 

It ended up being a weird day.  Amy returned late Wednesday night, met us at Chuck E's but we all crashed early.  There wasn't much time to bond in the morning, as she had to work.  So, she asked if I'd come and grab the girls before camp pick up.  So I did.  I stopped off at the camp store on my way to buy the boys some new t-shirts from the camp.  And they kicked me out, telling me to come back after they had officially opened, after 4:30.  I was like, that's not convenient, because there's flush time, and the boys are getting Tired in the evenings.   But I had budgeted $ for the shirts for the trip. Though, I was not remotely tempted to take them out in public Thursday night.  I was partly pissed, and thought, well, they lost my money, I'm not going back.  And that's a pity, because that evening there was a Day Camp closure program, for all the kids and their parents, and their nephews former roommates.  Amy said it's not that great, and that I should go up and get shirts later, when they are officially open, because they aren't technically manned all day.  Whatever.  I didn't want to go to the program. I didn't feel like leaving the house again after the epic meltdown on the way home from ChuckE's. Frankly, hanging out with 50 people I don't know when I'm exhausted didn't thrill me.  So I really didn't want to go.  And Chris was age eligible to stay overnight, we brought a sleeping bag and everything.  But after his explosion the night before, I told him, if you are going to treat me with such disrespect and act like that, there's no way I'm giving you over to someone else.  He did not appreciate that.  He'd wanted to go to the overnighter.  I wanted to send him.  But he was a hot mess.  And as it was nearing the end of the week, and we still had one more day of camp, I thought it best to keep him in.  So I planned on not doing the overnighter, and maybe staying for the res camp bonfire the next night.

So, after lunch, Jake and I drove up and got the girls.  As we were all piling out of the car, not even pausing to go get the boys, we found this leaf, just hanging down.  Like God had put it there.  :)


 Some tiny bug had cleared out part of the leaf.  It looked so neat.  The girls and I just marveled at it.



Neatest photo of the day.  



So we then went to get the boys.  They were playing on the playground equipment, probably one of their Favorite spots on the whole campground. 


When I got to pickup.  Sam was in his swimsuit.  They'd lost his hat the night before, and assured me they knew where it was.  Only they hadn't gotten it on his head.  I was not happy.  


So, the girls and boys all went back to Amy's to chill for the evening. 
It ended up raining again in the evening, but this time, we had no plans to go out.  

I did decide to venture out again though.  I really had wanted the boys to pick out some Camp Tecumseh shirts.  Only they didn't want to go.  They wanted to play with the girls.  So Jake and I went again to give it a try.  It was 7 pm, right in the middle of the program for the day campers.  And I tried to avoid the crowds and go buy shirts at the trading post.  The outside was crawling with teens, lined up to buy ice cream through the window, but someone opened the door, and I popped in and saw the piles of shirts.  As I headed for them, a young girl came over.  Are you Day Camp?  And she pointed to the program across the way, where I was technically supposed to be.  I explained that my kids were not up for it this evening, day camp was wearing them out, I smiled.  But I still wanted shirts for them.  She told me no, I could not buy shirts, I had to go away and come back in a half an hour when the program was over.   Are you serious?  I thought I was angry before, the first time I got kicked out when I tried to buy the kids shirts.  This made me livid.  I literally got so angry I was crying.  I hate when that happens.  I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, "I have money to spend here!"  And not only did they not want my money, they treated me crappy.  The girl was not understanding, or willing to work with me.  Heck, she wasn't even nice.  I told Ben, you're gonna lose business.  They Lost Mine.  They need your Nicest people up there, because they need to kiss the asses of the people who are spending boatloads of money to send their kids to camp.  They'd been hyping up this place for years, such that I couldn't wait to come up and enjoy it.  But I found that unless I was literally walking around with Amy or Ben, I got ignored, and treated like crap.  And frankly they are not my babysitters.  I should be able to walk around a bit by myself.  There were a few staffmembers that would smile or wave at me when I was on my own, but the greater number ignored me.  That combined with the shoddy treatment at the Trading Post.  I was not inclined to ever come back.  Did I mention I was ready to go home?!  I enjoyed seeing my friends, but this camp thing was not all it was cracked up to be. If I wanted to treated like crap, I could've done that without ever leaving home.  


This was the one silver lining - that my kids got to play with their friends in the evening.  
They had fun watching Barbie movies Thursday night.  I learned that these terrible Barbie DVDs really weren't as hideous as I thought they'd be.  They have outtakes, which are actually rather funny.  They got the kids dancing, and joking, laughing, and that made it much more bearable.  But I was ready to come home. 

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