The Odegaard family: in progress: August 2022

Thumbs up for summer camp!

Every week in the summer is different. Which is super refreshing and fun at first (towards the end I'm usually way ready for a schedule again). There's VBS week, with younger kiddos out of the house in the morning, there are various half-day camps, occasionally, and there are the weeks with nothing planned that end up planned anyway (but with trips to the pool, Hobby Lobby, fun places around town, playdates with friends, and random walks). There are also the inevitable trips and visits.

Plus occasionally I like us to do math in the summer, and most days I assign some sort of a special chore, in addition to regularly scheduled music practice. As I commanded my kids to clean the baseboards, walls, doorframes, doors, and cabinets one morning, I realized that I wasn't sure I'd ever actually cleaned my own baseboards--or at least not more than a couple times. Only my mom's. It's totally a kid job that gets neglected when there are no able-bodied kids in the house. Another mommying mystery, solved: which adults actually regularly clean the baseboards? None of them! Why? Because it's not that important and it's hard on our knees! Why assign it to kids? So they learn to work/keep out of trouble/it's hard to mess up! Plus they're the ones who get them dirty in the first place! (Or, if you regularly clean your baseboards, just disregard this part. Also, I suppose now that I know better I will probably stay up on it, but for now it's totally a kid job. Please don't look too closely.)

And actually, cleaning the woodwork is a job they all actually really get into--especially Elise and Naomi and Magic Erasers. There's something truly satisfying about scrubbing dirt off polished wood.

Anyway, summer is basically managed chaos (but good kinds of chaos!), which totally freaked poor Matt out when he first started working from home, and still does--especially when he actually tries to stay on top of our movements. I'm not sure why anyone tries, actually, because it all changes at any moment anyway.

Plus it helps that I purposefully schedule in plenty of down time.

Chaos doesn't mean kids hanging from the chandeliers, by the way (except Elise recently hanging ribbons from the chandelier so it looks like a giant jellyfish--a big improvement). Sometimes it means everyone is peacefully reading one minute and then rushing out the door to piano lessons/pool/local attraction/playdate/etc. the next.

Ah, summer!

But nothing challenges a chaotic summer schedule like a week of sending the older kids off to a 5-night camp.

To prepare, we bunched all of our activities into the week before and week after (talk about chaos!). We also discussed all the "what ifs?" To help with these, we devised a code, knowing that the camp photographer would make her rounds every day.

In addition, watched videos on horses, as the camp was called Horse Wilderness. They would be doing wilderness things, and also horse things. Kalina, not being super into horses, was going to have to fake it. Elise, not being in 7th grade yet, was also going to have to fake it. [The camp was officially for grades 7 and 8, but by nudging Elise into 7th--which she could totally be in anyway. As long as no one asked too many questions. Plus usually once people meet Elise, they want to keep her, so she I knew her personality would work in her favor if need be.]

And finally, we packed. The girls packed from a rather sparse list, and we asked our friends about the rest. They actually ended up well-prepared, and not really over-prepared. Perfect.

And I wrote letters, one to be delivered to each girl, each day. I believe most kids got a, "Love you! Mom" type of letter. Not mine. They received 3 long, fun (to me!) letters from me, and another each from one of the cats.

And then we were off! It took me an entire day to drop them get them to camp, and return home empty-handed.

The drive up was fun, getting excited about camp. We talked through scenarios and discussed what to do at each one. The girls read. I savored the last couple hours of me and my older girls. And finally, we made it to the iconic restaurant we'd agreed to meet up with our friends at, with whom they'd be attending camp (just the kids, though).

After another drive, we arrived at the camp. And then, after I spent 4 hours in the car, plus a restaurant meal, it took all of 10 minutes to drop them off. I felt ripped off, and ripped apart.

I didn't mean to come back a zillion times after dropping them off, but it happened. First, to encourage sunscreen--after all, they were standing right in the sun! Seriously, girls?!? Then, to ask Kalina if she wanted the book that was on the front seat (she didn't). Next, to take their picture. Everyone was laughing at me at this point, self included.

The whole cabin! Elise has
apparently found a snail, and
the fun counselor is
interviewing it for the
photo. Because Elise.

Finally, I actually drove away, with Kalina loudly predicting I'd be back. Soon, it dawned on me that I hadn't told the counselor that the girls would be picked up by their friends' parents, which is kinda important. Back I went--but that was it! I turned on my audio books and hit the road.

By evening, the camp had uploaded loads of photos from check-in and the first chapel service. And there I was! One of my many attempts to say goodbye was captured for posterity. More important, there were my girls, vehemently giving me thumbs ups in each picture.

Kalina makes breakfast

Why thumbs ups? It's all about the code we'd developed. We agreed that if the girls saw the photographer and wanted to communicate to me that the camp was actually a forced labor camp, and they needed to be picked up immediately, they were to smile and wave for the camera with one hand. If the girls saw the photographer and wanted to communicate to me that there were no bathrooms nearby (this was a legitimate worry for about 30 terror-stricken minutes during packing), she was to wave with two hands. If everything was fine, they were to give me a thumbs up. This made us all feel better.

Waiting for breakfast

I wondered if all week, all I would see in photos would be thumbs. Fortunately, that was not the case--they relaxed and had a fantastic time, from the looks of the photos. I did not, unfortunately, get a single shot of one of my girls on or even near a horse. But I did see that they cooked breakfast outside (Kalina tended the fire and checked the meal), did a perfectly coordinated Church Clap at chapel, and threw hatchets at a target (embarrassingly, I didn't actually recognize them until they got home and they showed me...).

Church clap!

Another stalker-Mom moment happened every evening when I checked their account balance to see if I needed to add more cash. You know, for things like candy and slushies (cushy camp!). One night, I saw that Elise had spent something like $17 and I figured out that she had probably purchased a milkshake and a t-shirt. But which shirt? After checking out the store online, I found the camp horse shirt that looked just like Elise. Was I right? (spoiler alert--I was only wrong about the milkshake!)

This is a picture I
didn't recognize
until after they
showed me at home.
Because ax throwing
?!?!?

The girls had a fantastic time, adored their counselor (who also adored them--and regained hope after having been ready to quit her job after the previous week and was giving it one more just to see), slept under the stars 3 nights in a row (and got rained on the last one!), rode horses a lot and BOTH enjoyed it, went down the water slide, rode the giant swing (terrifying, apparently!), enjoyed the food just the right amount (they were really excited about my lasagna, corn and bean salad, etc. back at home), loved the other kids, learned an amazing new song they're still singing, and decided that of course they'd be going back the next year. (Surely there are amazing camps closer to home though, right??)

But Kalina and Elise weren't the only girls who had a fantastic week! Naomi started talking the minute they left and didn't stop until after they got back home. We loved hearing from her.

Plus, she attended our favorite art camp with a good friend, Emily. As a bonus, the camp has a mini farm attached to it, and the new animals this year were bunnies. Every "recess," Naomi bonded with the same one. The whole recess.

Naomi and her non-
bunny friend

Naomi and her camp bunny

Naomi and Emily, although they were only 8 and 9, were allowed to be in the upstairs area this year, with more advanced projects. They actually did a stained glass project that turned out beautifully (Naomi made an orange cat), as well as a hanging clay planter and one or two other things. They had a blast.

You'd think we would've had a lot of extra time on our hands, but that wasn't the case. I'd found a sweet little paper flower kit and we poured over the complex instructions and completed a few steps every day, waiting to let the glue dry. We learned a lot and produced a poppy and a purple one by the end of the week. They were lovely, but time-consuming! We also worked on a couple badges, since Naomi's trying to fill her AHG flower this summer, having just moved up to the next level. And baked, and read, and chatted, and played games.

With a playdate or two and other random things going on, the week passed super quickly, but we enjoyed every moment of it. In fact, we might just send the older girls away for a week every year...