Moms are always on the lookout for kid-friendly activities to fill the long summer days. One popular pursuit is summer day camp, which would be an excellent choice except camp has so much, well … dirt. And really icky bugs. These days my idea of roughing it is a hotel that doesn’t feature pool boys toting watered-down margaritas by the pitcher-full. But if July finds you schlepping around day camp with your kids: Sister, I feel your pain.
When we landed on the doorstep of our new home many years ago, our real estate agent dropped over to see how things were going. And I hope you’ll pardon me when I say that there is a special seat reserved in hell for that man based on the outcome of his visit.
“Hey,” he began in a friendly enough fashion. “I’ll bet your daughters would like to meet some new kids in town. I’ll introduce you to our neighbor; she runs the parent co-op day camp.”
OK, so the first clue that I should have run away screaming like a banshee was that the co-op-camp-running neighbor turned out to be a major hippie-crunchy-granola type left over from the ’60s who buried her placentas in the backyard and spun her family’s clothing out of hair trimmings. The day we met, her spindly-legged toddler was munching dried soy beans out of a burlap bag while the older children, who she had breast-fed until approximately junior high, were in the backyard attending to the compost heap. Nevertheless, I totally ignored major red flags as a raging case of “Mom Guilt” compelled me to sign us up for camp.
Now I say “us” because the thing about a kid’s “co-op” anything is – you guessed it – the parents are forced to participate. So on the prescribed day, I packed up my 3 and 7-year-old daughters and we headed off to camp armed with towels, swim suits, lunches and plenty of aspirin.
One of the scariest aspects of summer camps with other moms in attendance is lunch. You quickly grasp that all those moms are checking out the lunches the other moms sent with their little munchkins, and God forbid your kid’s lunch isn’t up to snuff. I mean, seriously, we passed at least four fast-food places on the way, but what mother is disturbed enough to send little Mortimer to co-op day camp with a Big-Barn-Buster Burger and greasy fries? No, that kind of reputation could follow you around for life. I wouldn’t recommend packing them off with a sack of donuts, either, even though your off-spring would be the most popular kid at camp as youngsters raised on bowls of cardboard for breakfast groveled for trades.
The first day at camp I was assigned to work with my 3-year old’s group, which meant my 7-year old was on her own with her age group. She’s never let me forget that she didn’t know one single kid at camp and was forced to eat lunch all by herself, and the only camper who spoke to her was the chubby kid who picked his nose. (“Well, then just tell him to pick you a winner, sweetie,” I said, trying to jolly her out of her funk. She gave me such a slit-eyed glare that I feared I had pulled her ponytail a little too tight.)
Back at the 3-year-old campers’ site, I met a mom who had that deer-in-the-headlights look, and we bonded instantly.
“Hi, my name is Charlene,” she chirped, extending a finger-paint-stained hand. “And this is Danny,” she continued, nodding toward the little cherub at her side. “This is our second year here, and we just love this camp, don’t we Danny?”
“You fool,” shot back the pint-sized Don Rickles clone. OK, so Danny already had his mom’s number, and if Charlene’s tightly clinched teeth were any indication, she must have secretly agreed with that assessment. Based on the amount of toddler temper tantrums I was witnessing, this wasn’t exactly the happiest place on Earth. And let’s be honest here, fashioning fun patchwork designs from owl vomit wasn’t my idea of a good time, either.
Waiting right around the corner, however, is an even scarier kid activity known as “away” camp. This is prefaced by a harrowing ride through the mountains where at least one kid becomes violently carsick, demonstrating awe-inspiring projectile vomiting. Straggling into camp, parents are introduced to the cool counselors before abandoning their adolescents to a camping experience totally … different than it used to be.
After seven days we went to collect our 13-year-old. Accompanying her down the steps of the camp’s bus was a boy of about the same age who – yikes! – embraced her before turning to trot off to greet his parents. OK, it wasn’t exactly the scene in “From Here to Eternity” – you know, the couple reclined in the sand as the waves crash over them. But it could have been from the way I froze in mid stride, doing my darnedest to maintain a cool head and contrive a casual means of interrogation.
“Don’t you want to know what this yellow scarf means?” my daughter asked during the tense ride home.
One thing about “away” camps is they come with all sorts of meaningful symbols, handshakes and what have you that are privy to campers but not the outside world.
“Sure!” I responded too eagerly, hoping for a casual opening where I could glean some information.
“I can’t tell you,” she replied. Well, great. Then maybe she could tell me who that young buck was that practically molested her in the parking lot. How about that for openers? But before long her new friend “David” became a summer camp memory, never to be mentioned again. Obviously we’d dodged a major bullet.
So if your experience at co-op day camp features loads of fun activities like starting camp fires from naval lint, take heart! At least you will catch sight of any potential “Davids” out there so you can take matters into your own hands and quickly feed him to the bears.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at Ga*********@*ol.com.
