Camping!

OK so they are not really camping.  Not out in the wild with tents and mess kits, tying knots and roasting marshmallows, but the people have been and will continue to be enrolled in camp.  I took the liberty of not typing this in all caps, but you can best believe that I am shouting!  Because from 9 am until 4 pm, both girls find themselves having a little enrichment in their reading and math skills, learning to cheer and dance, making some kind of ridiculous project, doing sport, watching movies, and not being at home.  Every day!  Alas, next week is their final week of this heavenly excursion as I will start carting them on weekend jaunts to the Hamptons to enjoy the summer house given us by my husband's employer and taking full advantage of the local pool for which I paid over $400 for the summer.

The camp is not my favorite but it doesn't have to be; I'm not going there.  A little unorganized with too many teenagers in roles that they are surely not capable of handling in between all the texting, ogling, flirting, and tickling, it is a pretty makeshift operation in the basement of a church.  Each morning, Lily and her group of 5 to 8 year olds reinforce their reading and writing skills and work on various K through 2nd grade math problems.  There is snack, free lunch, extracurriculars, swimming twice a week, and field trips on Fridays.  She has learned to do a cartwheel and various Disney-grade, tween cheerleading moves, and has made friends with kids outside of her school and neighborhood.  I am not really loving the field trips as they cost additional money and are often not age appropriate but thus far I have let Lily go (She will not, however, go on the trip to a massive water park tomorrow billed as having 18 water slides.  Not quite ready for that.).  Virginie has stayed home with me because while I am desperate for some free time, not at the expense of a three year old being forced to endure forty minute bus rides and guided tours of the museum.  Lest you think I have sacrificed Lily, she loves camp, is kind of out of her mind about it, and I have checked in on the field trip chaperones and called in to make sure all is OK.  Yes, I am still that mom.

Most of the children at this camp are African-American with a few others interspersed.  It is exactly the opposite of her school's make up, which while pretty diverse for largely segregated New Jersey still shows the children of color as little dots in a sea of pinks and peaches.  This is not judgment, just the truth.  I feel good to see Lily in the mix with all these lovely brown-skinned, chocolate-hued children feeling comfortable and accepted.  Much like our time in Barbados, I am happy to have Lily and Virginie see the varying shades of our community with love and acceptance.  It's funny, in the largely white town that we live in, the white children come to the discovery that I am Lily's mother with surprise, the black children with pride.  Lily has met them both with the same response, "Yup.  That's my mom.  She's the best mom ever."  We have begun the slow turning, layered conversation about race with both the people, and I am happy to report that they feel comfortable with themselves and everyone else.

What happens at the camp, as long as my children are safe, is fine with me.  I am most excited about 6 1/2 hours of unscheduled, unstructured time for myself where I can and do whatever I want.  The first two weeks, as I was new to this free time thing, I did lots of housecleaning and laundry, dinner prep, and once all that was done would sit down and read or watch a little TV before going to get the people.  And then I got hip to the game.  I could write!  Go for a walk!  Go to the movies!  Listen to the deafening, glorious silence or the hum of the central air conditioning!  I could take a shower and have no one, nobody, come and ask me something!  I took a nap, read old magazines that I have not been able to keep up with, chatted on the phone with long lost friends, and wrote to my heart's content.

Summer offers freedom and new experiences for these little kiddies and I am so happy to share this idyllic time with them.  But I am also so happy to find the time to camp out myself, doing things that I want to do by myself...and being able to do them. 


(c)  Copyright 2012.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.