those little kids have a lot of energy

on the camp field trip yesterday some of the older children were enlisted to assist in keeping up with the younger kids, C was with 6 years olds and was wiped out last night to the extent he chose to go to bed early because "those little kids have a lot of energy"

from a big fish in a little pond

to a much larger pond.....kiddo attending the day camp at the Y was bumpy the first few days he decided he hated it early on & what did we do to him?! Since he was a toddler he had been in much smaller settings as far as daycare/camp were concerned. The first week was apparently torture, or so we were lead to believe- he was given the option to stay at home with David that Friday which got an enthusiastic yes & a happy dance I seem to recall. Imagine my surprise walking out of the bathroom that Friday morning to find C with towel in hand, ready to shower oh and his lunch was ready to roll could I pleeease drive him to the Y he did not want to miss anything fun

big man on campus

C's grand return to summer camp/daycare where he is beloved & looked up to by all....vaguely reminiscent of Norm's grand entrances on Cheers. He is anxiously awaiting for his bestest bud who will join him next week.

summer camp

about time for my annual whine about not ever going to summer camp.....and I ALWAYS wanted to go to summer camp. Summers were always fun, I grew up back in the days that you got on your bike and were gone maybe till lunch or even dinner running around with friends. For many years we would go to the beach several times a week, we took little day trips with my mother & grandmother, lunches, trips to book stores and the standard 1 week family vacation in Vt. excruciatingly very normal, very Mayberry but alas no camp for me..no one I knew went to camp either so I have no idea why I fixated on this...or why I still am for that matter but there it is and I am sure I'll complain same place similar time next year as arrangements are made for C and his summer. He will be attending the same daycare/summer camp he has been for the past 4 years with a week in CT to see my folks and 2 weeks of basketball camp (week 2 courtesy of MIL) of course C came with a flyer a 4-H sleep away camp that he was salivating over and I have come across various and sundry week long camps that I think he would get a kick out of...oh okay some of them I want to go to too! The camp he goes to will credit 1 week a summer but they do not have a revolving door policy and C will not be headed to 4-H camp-this summer anyway next summer due to age restrictions will be the last at his current daycare and in 2 years I will be scrambling around trying to find a variety of week long camps with full day hours to keep him occupied as well as foisting him on various and sundry relatives for a week here or there

summer camp

I always wanted to go to summer camp in a desperate sort of way growing up I remember pouring over my Ranger Rick magazines reading about all of the summer camps with cool activities in all sorts of places around the States. Alas it never happened of course I never quite considered the costs surrounding summer camp which is the safe bet why I never got to go. I would love to live vicariously through my son ands send him but again money is involved. He goes to a perfectly good day camp of sorts but it is in a daycare facility which means we only have a few summers that he can attend due to age requirements, two in fact I think. This camp has a set pricing schedule you pay monthly with only one week credit for vacation so side projects can be cost prohibitive for instance his week of basketball camp we paid for both camps that week. Once he is old enough we will have to look at variety of other camp alternatives and hopefully we will be able to swing a sleep away camp option at that point.

bestest of buddies

when C started school almost 4 years ago now we had to switch his daycare to one that would pick up at his school each afternoon. Once the first summer rolled around we decided to leave him at the new location for continuity and location purposes and quite frankly it is a larger daycare with more field trips and activities than the smaller one provided. He was not thrilled with the idea because he was the only boy in his grade attending the summer camp, after a bumpy start he managed to make friends with some younger & some older boys and he made due the next couple of summers. Until last summer that is when D came on the scene OMG a true "bromance" kidmance was born the boys were inseparable the entire summer. As D does not live in the same school zone they boys have been separated during the school year(and why we did not exchange phone numbers I am not sure but ah well we will this summer).
First day of summer yesterday....I was having car issues the plan was to have MIL get us when car was ready take C to summer camp & me to get car so we go to sleep in a bit yesterday. First thing out of C's mouth when he got up, even before he asked for food was(no small thing if you know my son)
I'm late I need to get to summer camp
And once we arrived at 10:30 the teacher was so happy to C as D had been asking every 10 minutes since he arrived where C was.
way too cute

sail camp at the yacht club

yeah right um so...
C is not signed up for that but thank you yacht club for the handy bookmark that came home in his backpack

summer camp

so we are back here again already-where did the year go???
C is signed up for the "summer camp" at his daycare which while a daycare center it is I guess just aftercare for him and summer camp as well I don't think the semantics of what we are calling it bothers C as of yet. We are golden with where we are at till 5th grade which will I'm sure be here before you know it! I am still having a hard time believing he starts 3rd grade in August-did I not just give birth? no I guess I can't be still calling this baby weight anymore then can I?
So any way just a few more years then we will have to arrange a series of day camps for the boy-the paper puts out a supplement each spring that lists a multitude of day camp & summer activities which should help in the planning.
Sleep away camp also came up this weekend and I hope that we will be able to swing that for C at some point. I always desperately wanted to do that in the summer but alas we never did..I was such a deprived child or was that depraved? I get confused.

summer scheduling

when I was growing up summer was all about goofing off, you had 2 months of uninterrupted goof off time, you rode your bike, caught frogs, played kickball at the end of the street, played tag, built forts in the woods & one week of vacation with the parents in Vt. Now there are so many bloody different camps to sign up for, a camp for baseball, soccer, swimming, reading, math, vacation bible school(more of a southern thing but slowly creeping it's way north I understand). Connor is going to his daycare full-time which they bill as a summer camp for the kids with all sorts of field trips to the zoo, the women's basketball hall of fame, a pizza place, the park, the library, etc. This is what he did last year & he had a blast last summer, this year we are going to add on a baseball camp for one week in June which is only in the morning so it will involve a mid-morning drop off making one of us late for work, a pick-up around noon & a drop off at his regular daycare, unless they have a field trip that day which will mean figuring out other arrangements for the boy. All of this will also include lunch on the go because lunchtime is pretty early at his daycare. I am hoping my MIL can help out with transportation issues as well as maybe an afternoon or two of hanging out with the boy. I had thought about adding vacation bible school to the mix this summer but that is one week in June, just mornings so I think I will skip that altogether. If we had the money & time to spend running him around all summer he theoretically could be doing something different each week, it's so crazy to have kids booked up when they should be goofing off... They will have plenty of time to run around with their lives scheduled when they grow up!