special needs camp

26 August 2012

Vacation Revelation

We went straight from camp pickup to vacation; now is the only significant length of time between June and December that we will all be together. There is a lot to process: camp, work and school transitions, the sudden loss of friends and colleagues over the summer. It seems I say in every post that we are learning a lot, but each time I write it I suppose I really mean to say we are learning unexpected things about the twists and turns our lives take, beyond what we have come to expect in the earlier years of raising children and getting older. The more I try to live in the moment, the more these unanticipated  events seem to get in the way.

Even as I write a hurricane (Isaac) has popped up out of nowhere to bluster through our trip and set us back a day – it’s causing both excitement and anxiety, but right now the nearly empty beach is populated by just two people, Dad and boy out for a snorkle in a window of late afternoon sunshine between the bands of wind and rain. This is the revelation of the vacation for me. Usually too chicken to snorkel, the calm waters of Caneel Bay convinced me that even I could venture out into the reefs. Much as I am enchanted by graceful sea turtles and spiky urchins down on the sea floor, the most breathtaking sight is the beauty of our boy moving through the ocean. I have always known he is more content under the water than above it, but I never understood the truth of that until now. While I have to remind myself to breathe through the snorkle, he dives and darts down through the water with an ease that astounds. This is a moment I can savor and one I would give him every day if I could.

And when he comes out of the water he rests. And then he talks. And most of words and phrases are his – not scripted or non-sensical. He wants to know more about his friend who died suddenly of leukemia while he was away (we don’t have a lot of answers; we can’t make sense of it, either). He wants to talk about school and home and his sister going to college. The water has cleared the static in his brain and it reminds me a little of Oliver Sacks‘s stories of people who gain clarity and lose it again. Even though the increased fluidity does not last, the gift from the sea is a window into his mind, and I wish and wonder how we could prop it open a bit longer before the storm arrives, passes, and we go home.

16 August 2012

The Home Stretch

It’s the last week of camp. I have pored over all of the camp’s photos of our boy and verified that he does look older. We’ve had a phone call and an e-mail over the last few days and I recognize that the flow of communication from him has not evolved as much as we had hoped – the separation did not widely increase the level of detail he provides in letters or over the phone. Still, we know that he is well and happy and we are all anxious to be together again. By any measure the venture has been a success, but the real specifics will be revealed in the coming weeks and months as we observe the re-entry to home and school.

Meanwhile, we have had seven weeks of clear floors, with no trains or set ups of Pride Rock, The Big Harbor, or Playmobil farms and zoos. I had the carpets cleaned yesterday; they are vibrant, soft and beautiful. All prepared for him to come home.

10 August 2012

The Visit: Longest and Shortest Day of My Life.

We went. We visited. We came home.

We got the best hugs ever and spent much of the day just soaking up the feeling of being together again. It was hot and humid and so group activities where we could socialize and learn more about camp just seemed impossible – we strolled off in search of a breeze and found it on a hill overlooking the lake.

One look at his cabin made me feel so proud of our boy – living in close quarters in that heat (lots of fans) for so long would test the best of us. And of course this is no ordinary group of boys. They are quirky and sometimes challenging kids, and fortunately the counselors are young men with good hearts and lots of energy. It is clear that he copes by drawing  – the walls next to his bunk are plastered with art in which every part of the paper is colored. Our girl found a little note written on the wall next to his pillow: “6 weeks can take forever and all summer.” At that moment it was hard not to whisk him to the car and bring him home, until I asked him what he missed most. He looked wistfully away and sighed. “Wireless internet.” Okay, he can stay.

And the reality is that he showed us he has the tools to stick it out for another couple weeks, and do so happily. His knee is great, he is taller (I think), more muscular (for sure), and much more self sufficient. He swims twice a day and has learned to water ski. He got and wrote some terrific letters; there’s an impressive pile of them next to his bunk. I am overwhelmed at the generosity of all of the friends and family who make the effort to write to him and send him care packages. It is an unexpected blessing of this whole enterprise that so many people would take the time from summer work and travel to think of him – he got packages and postcards from Europe, Ohio and California representing family, friends and teachers he has known at every age all the way back to preschool.

Our world – his world – is bigger than we thought. That alone is worth the price of separation.

2 August 2012

Letters? Oh…you mean theeeese letters…

Naturally just before Parent’s Day they get the kids to get caught up on their correspondence – just in time to ask you to bring them stuff. You know they’ve been sitting around his bunk for a while because there’s no mention of the knee injury. Doesn’t matter – I live to see his distinctive handwriting (best in family), which I keep trying to make into a font.

You can tell that the bulk of his letter-writing experience has been to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny because he’s got the gift requests down pat – very specific, down to the materials and manufacturers. The boy understands how to communicate when he wants something – he includes visual prompts. He drew the cookies he wants me to send.

Awesome.

25 July 2012

Second Phone Call: Talk to Me

Damn the communication disorder. We agreed on early morning phone calls because we wanted the call to be as far away from bedtime as possible to avoid homesickness, which is more likely to strike at the end of the day. But now he comes to the telephone sleepy and hungry, ready for breakfast instead of conversation. Sweet and groggy, he gives maddeningly short answers.

What’s your favorite thing? “Evening swim.”

How’s the food? “Good!”

Are you having fun? “Yeah.”

What do you think of camp? “Awesome!”

I know these are good and encouraging answers, but I want details. Reassurances. Stories. Questions about how things are at home. I remind myself that I, too, am monosyllabic at 8am. More importantly, this isn’t any different from the conversations we have over the phone when he is here. I know that he is looking at his counselor as he speaks, waiting for prompts, and that the short answers mean that he is not getting prompts because they know I will hear it if they model answers for him. I also know that if he really wanted something, he would tell me. All of that is good, but at the halfway point of a 7 week separation I can’t help but want more. I am being unreasonable.

So the voice, with a trace of sleep in it and a smile behind it that I can detect, will have to suffice. And I blog about because as I write it down it gets more encouraging in the retelling.

What are doing today? “Having breakfast.”

What’s for breakfast? “I have no idea.”

What do you want for breakfast? “Pancakes.”

What do you think of camp? “I’ve been here a lot of weeks!”

Is that okay? “Yeah!”

We are coming to see you on family day! “Good!”

We will all give lots of hugs. “Yeah.” <heavy sigh>

We love you and are so proud of you. “I love you, too!”

We can’t really ask for more than that.

But a letter would be nice…

2 July 2012

Day 1: I Miss the Grocery Store Rules

Off to camp for just over 24 hours and everything was just fine until we went to the grocery store and realized I only have to make one kind of dinner tonight. No special burger, dog, or pizza, just the regular stuff. I was okay with all that – happy, even – then, stashed under the checkout on the way out, I saw the ice melt with the Road Runner on the package, and no one said “Beep! Beep!” in my ear. I realized that for the next several weeks I will not need to invoke the local grocery store rules:

  • No Road Runner sounds.
  • No Tigger bounces.
  • No yodeling.
  • No skipping.
  • No chasing.
  • No DVDs.
  • No Scooby Doo gummy snacks.
  • No buying every single container of lemon sorbet, box of Rice Chex, or package of gluten free chocolate chip muffins (one of each only).

There are dozens more and they will all come back to me every time I go to a different store. There will be days when the suspension of the rules will come as the relief it is supposed to be, but today there’s just an empty space where the “Beep Beep!” usually is.

25 June 2012

Tromping Back to Camp

We love the Hallmark characters Hoops & Yoyo, and have for many years. They provided our first family doubled-over-in-front-of-the-computer moment, and our youngest memorized all of the dialogue from their tale of The Runaway Marshmallow (watch them all – you won’t be sorry). But even as we continue to buy Hoops & Yoyo greeting cards it has been a while since our marshmallow moments. Now our older boy is going to camp – sleep away camp – for a long time. We never really thought we would find a camp that would meet his needs and still be camp. It has been a long process to get to this point and I still can’t write about it quite yet except to say that the dialogue from The Runaway Marshmallow is all that stands between me and tears when I think about separating from my boy. We know that it is the right thing; we know that he will love it; we know it will be hard for all of us to not be together as a family for a large part of the summer. And so we make light of it by making all references to camp as “tromping back to camp!” I hope I will be able to write about it in a good way, and if not, well then I’ll be be back in September. The tromping begins next week; wish us luck.