Happy Campers

So we've completed our first great Sleepaway Camp Adventure, and all is well. The boys absolutely loved camp: they swam and rode horses every day, and did all kinds of other activities like laser tag, jumping on a huge, floating inflatable called "the blob", BB guns, archery - basically, if you can think of an outdoor activity liked by elementary school-aged boys, they did some of that at camp. The food was (reportedly) awesome, the counselers were fanatastic, and they were even spared the indignity of interacting with girls for an entire week, as the camp is very strictly segregated.

Two's counselor reported that he was precise, resourceful, and mature. Except for the last one I have to say: exactly. He cried Saturday night in a very overtired fashion, whispering to me that he "needed to go back to camp." My poor baby who loves an orderly schedule, and lives in a house without one! Camp was fun and at the same time it met his deep-seated need for always knowing what is happening next. I think this bodes well for the future, I have to say: if he can keep his grades high, he is definitely military academy material. And that means: no tuition payments for mom and dad! I like it; I like it a lot.

One's counselor wrote that he is expressive, compassionate, consistent, and analytical. Compassionate? I guess he is, as far as that character trait goes in a 10 year old boy. The rest of the evaluation was spot-on. He, predictably, had trouble getting along with a few cabin-mates. But, surprisingly, he handled himself exactly as he should have. He tried to respond when they picked on him with something that would diffuse the situation - or made a simple statement like "I guess we don't agree. Let's drop it." He tried this tack until Wednesday, when he finally lost it and yelled at the three troublemakers. He then realized that yelling wasn't going to fix it, and shot off to get his counselor involved. His counselor called a cabin meeting and put a very effective stop to all of the nonsense. The two particularly nasty boys didn't become One's friends afterwards, or anything that silly, but they did leave him alone entirely. Victory.

They are happy to be home, but very excited about going back again, and wishing that next year they could stay for more than one week. I love that this big experiment worked so well. Would that all milestones on the way to adulthood pass so smoothly!