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A Camping We Will Go!
One Mother's Journey Back to Camp By Jenn Director Knudsen
Something about this camp's description and its match for my spirited daughter's desires stuck in my gut. I cut out the article and ruminated for weeks about the feasibility of taking my preschooler to camp with me. Every time I thought about taking the plunge, it just felt right to dive on in.
So I did.
I signed up myself, my (brave) mom and my daughter, Alyssa, who would be one week shy of her 4th birthday during the mid-summer's mother-child camp session.
The weather during our four-day stay was gorgeous; we all left with lovely tans. And the amount of sand we tracked into our threadbare cabins and that wheedled its way into our every orifice was legion.
We slept very little, my daughter squirming around on the top bunk while I feigned sleep on the bottom. They served sandwiches on white bread. No wine and no chocolate were to be found. (Thank goodness they had black tea and a steady supply of hot water.) At least the group showers had curtains, allowing for a modicum of privacy.
Having delivered two babies, I now get up not only once, but twice or even thrice, each night to tinkle. I did so with flashlight in hand.
My daughter, being only (nearly) 4, whined a lot. She picked at the food and complained about anything that wasn't ice cream. And she didn't like being coerced into showering and washing away all that sand from between every strand of hair and fold.
But, all told, Alyssa was a marvel. She loved her little preschool peers, whom she still talks about. She memorized some of those funky camp songs, choreography included.
She spent hours digging with fingernails and plastic shovels in the sand. She fell in love with the teenage counselors, begging to sit on their laps during announcements or evening campfires.
