Monday:
The first day of camp was crazy and fun. My co-counselor had been a counselor before so he knew what he was doing and where we were going for the different activities, thank goodness. Our group is a specialty group, they do more of one activity than any of the others. Because it's a specialty group, the ages range and it's co-ed (somewhat). The youngest is 6 and a half and the oldest is 11. The group has a grand total of 17, and only two of them are girls. Little boys are easy for me and difficult at the same time. Easy in the sense that I can raise my voice and not hurt feelings (and sometimes I do need to yell just to be heard), but difficult in the fact that I still have no idea why rocks and sticks are so interesting and why they must constantly pick them up and throw them at each other. That's where yelling comes in handy though.The main difficulty we had with the big difference in gender numbers was changing into bathing suits to go to the pool. The two girls changed fairly quickly as you can probably imagine. The boys not so much. I thought it would be easier if we let them change in the bathrooms of the building our activity before swim was in. Bad idea. Each bathroom only had two stalls and that's what the boys were using. I'm not sure how long it took, or how many times my co-counselor would open the door and tell them to hurry up, but when I had finally had enough, I opened the door a crack and yelled,
"If you boys don't hurry up, I'm sending the girls in to get you!"
To which the girls' reaction was to run up to me, each raising their hands, and crying, "Oh let me! Let me!" Needless to say that was not the reaction I was expecting, though it did amuse me a great deal. I thought boys and girls have cooties at this age, maybe that was just my generation...
We ended up getting to the pool just before 2:30pm, I thought we were actually early because our other periods had been on the hour and half hour marks. The life guard I spoke to about which group we were and who needed to be swim tested didn't say anything about whether or not we were there on time and even thought we were early too when I said as much. She swim tested the kids kids and then the whistle was blown for adult swim shortly after they finished (which was about ten minutes or so).
I sit down next to my co-counselor after helping some of our kids apply sun screen and he asks if we just want to stay there for the next period. I give him a blank look and that's when he tells me that we were veeeeeery late. We were suppose to be there at 2, not 2:30 like I had thought. I looked at our schedule and he was right, I also looked at what our next activity was suppose to be and couldn't bring myself to tell 15 boys that they couldn't swim anymore and we all had to go to Dancing. We passed the world along through another counselor who was heading up the hill to upper camp where dancing was (the pool is at the bottom of the hill, and it's a pain to walk up and down it all day if you don't have to) that our group wouldn't be making it and the specialist could go home early if she wanted. According to my other counselor, the woman who does dancing is cool and probably wouldn't mind. I know I wouldn't mind if I got to leave early on the first day.
So we stayed at the pool longer than we should have, nobody noticed or minded. It was the first day after all, everyone just chalked any craziness up to that fact. The kids didn't mind that we missed dance, like I thought. We got them changed and back up the hill for popsicles and pick up close to right on time. We took turns taking kids to buses and afternoons supervision (some kids parents come later or some kids have a bus that comes later), the buses left close to on time and then the parents were allowed to come up. Pick up went smoothly for the first day, so I'm told, and I was on the road by 5.
Tuesday:
We had a knotting class. Our group got the first knot (which was suppose to be the whole half an hour lesson) within the first five minutes. So the specialist moved on to another knot that was a bit more challenging. Most of the kids got it quickly and moved on to the playground, but some stayed behind to practice and learn more knots. The girls ran off to play with another group of girls who had started a game of Red Rover and stayed with them until we moved on to the next activity. Meanwhile, the next time I look over at our specialist, one of the boys is tying his hands behind his back with a newly learned knot.Turns out, the specialist told him to, so he could see if he could get out of it or not. *Shakes head* Boys...So the rest of the day I told people that my group tied up the knotting specialist.
Wednesday:
We had archery on Wednesday and everyone had been looking forward to it all week. Most of the kids could hit the target with at least one of their three arrows, but some flew way over and behind them. I got two arrows in the yellow portion that is in the middle (one of which landed in the very middle circle) and most of the boys saw this. I had hoped it would keep them in line later on knowing that I could hit a bullseye with a bow and arrow ;)Thursday:
During the lunch period on Thursday, but after most of the kids had finished their lunch, some of the boys began fighting with their towels. Not twisting them up tight and whipping them at each other, more like just swinging them around trying to hit each other. Since we each lunch indoors and there were no other groups around, I didn't mind because there was really no one else for them to hurt in their little game. On the one hand, I wanted to be the cool counselor to show them how to roll up their towels and snap them at each other. But on the other hand, I didn't need 15 boys rolling up their towels and whipping each other near me and in an enclosed area.Friday:
After karate class on Friday, but before the period was over, we played a game called "Tiger Tales" which is where two people face each other, both with a bandanna tucked in their belts and try to get the other person's without losing their own. The karate specialist purposely saved me and my co-counselor for last, knowing the kids would want to see us face each other, and he was right. During our round, I could hear the kids betting on who they thought was going to win. I didn't think they were serious. I won, surprisingly (my co-counselor has a good two inches of height on me and is way more athletic), and when I sat down, one of the boys leans over to me and says, "You won me half a popsicle!"Everyone, at the end of the day during dismissal, gets a popsicle. They are the ones that are like two popsicles stuck together with the two sticks and everything, so it was easy for the boys to bet halves of popsicles. I still couldn't believe that they were actually betting, but I did notice when we did finally get popsicles that everyone was eating a whole one and no one gave up the halves that they had lost.
I also had to deal with my first crier of the summer. One of the boys constantly lost game after game of chicken on the playground and wasn't happy, he felt he had a disadvantage because he had a band-aid on each of his hands. But I talked to him for a little bit and got him to calm down enough to practice balancing with me on another section of the playground and he was happy again in a few minutes. He actually went back to playing chicken with everyone else and didn't mind when he lost. No biggie.
So that was the first week. I keep telling my friends that no matter how bad it seems (whether it's 95 degrees with lots of humidity or it takes me an hour and a half to get home because of traffic), it's still sooo much better than working at a restaurant with customers. I've always been one to work a lower paying job that I enjoyed rather than a higher paying job that I hated. My dad is the other way around and while his personality type can stand that, mine can only take it for so long. I am so happy at camp, I'm having so much fun, and I can't believe I'm getting paid to do what I'm doing. This is the kind of stuff I'd do as a volunteer for my church or something, so to get paid for it is awesome. I thought I was going to have a hard time with it and the kids weren't going to listen at all, but we seem to be doing pretty well, even the specialists say we have a pretty good group. I just hope this will all carry through to the end of the summer.
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