Wow, what a roller coaster this past month has been for me.
I presently have absolutely no time to devote to anything remotely creative — as I’m slowly and painfully discovering — but I’m willing to throw out a quick update in train-of-thought word-puke form.
First, the most painful update: I did not get accepted into TFA.
…I’ve decided to apply to become a corps member for Teach for America!
I’ll know by November 1st whether I’ve gotten the job or not, but I’m really crossing my fingers and doing good things to random people who annoy me in hopes of boosting my karma points (I’m sorry for cutting you off with my skateboard, entire USC campus!).
I’ve researched and interviewed just about everyone I can think of in order to find out everything about Teach for America. It seems like the people who know most about the organization tend tend to feel passionately on both sides of the spectrum — some believe it does more harm than good, others believe it’s truly creating progress.
The main criticism that’s been given to me is that a lot of people who apply to be a corps member are doing it for the wrong reasons — they solely want the service work to help them advance in their future careers without actually feeling passionate about children. The corps members take the place of teachers without jobs who are technically more qualified. However, recent studies show that this is not necessarily the case in California.
This criticism does not apply to me. The main reason I want to join the organization is because I miss the little pipsqueaks that I’ve cared for over the past three years. All of my close friends could probably name about five kids I’ve worked with — and I know they get tired of hearing about the funny/interesting things that happen at camp (which to be honest is part of why I’ve created this blog! I can tell as many camp stories as I want and have my enslaved computer an attentive audience). I’ve mentioned before in the past that I can’t see myself in a career that doesn’t involve working with children, and that’s why going into law right away is not the best decision for me.
I know it will be challenging, but I also know that it will be a rewarding adventure!
I blame the lateness of this post on the fact that a child tried to skewer me like a shish kabob with an arrow.
This past week was my last week of summer camp — and since I will be in Europe next summer, my last week with a lot of my favorite campers for at least a year. Cue the tears. I’ve grown extremely attached to some of the campers because I’ve had a few of them them almost every week throughout the summer for the past three years. You’ll get to meet two of them at the end of the post!
Lanyards made by mostly one camper.
Surf Camp Snippets
“Okay, when the counselors go in… you guys can go in.” My little shredder shoobies sprinted down the shoreline with excited looks on their faces, panting as they lugged the surfboards after them… sometimes dragging them by the leash. They ran into the water and paddled their little bodies into the whitewash.
After a few shrieks, I looked over and saw a few of them clutched their boards like Jack on his log while the Titanic was sinking. They began to drift further and further into the deep water with their eyes wide and panicked.
There were jellyfish everywhere. Dark red in color and about 6 inches to a foot wide in diameter. Some of the tentacles were over a foot long as well!
One of the black nettle jellybeasts
A few of the braver kids got zapped, and said the stings weren’t too bad — mostly itchy. Thankfully, this put some of the wimpier children at ease. The counselors were stung a bit (including me) and we began to seek revenge on the jellyfish.
At first my friend and fellow counselor and I wrangled the jellies to keep the children a little safer — then it turned into plain entertainment. We built a mass grave to bury the jellyfish in, and some tourists looked at me like I was some sadist, allowing my children to go into the jellyfish fields.
I shall call you squishy, and squishy shall be mine.
The children who didn’t surf decided to make a hole in the sand called “Sandcrab Sanctuary.” For about three hours, the children divided themselves into diggers, builders, and runners. The diggers dug the hole, the builders built the moat, and the runners scooped up the sandcrabs from the shoreline and dumped them into the Sandcrab Sanctuary.
What the children didn’t realize was that they had built the “Sanctuary” on dry sand… about 20 feet from the waterline. The crabs started dying almost immediately.
The children began to send more and more runners to bring back buckets of water to dump into the sanctuary, hoping to cool off the crabs that were basically cooked alive in the heat and dryness. Every time a bucket of water was dumped into the hole, literally hundreds of sandcrabs would appear and start swimming around, swooshing around and around the hole in a sandcrab fury — you could barely see any water, it was simply a wall of sandcrabs!
I told them that in order for the crabs to survive, they’d need need to transport the crabs back to their original homes. The children took on jobs — runners and rescuers. The runners would get the water to sustain the still alive crabs, the rescuers would scoop them back up and transport them to the shoreline. They hustled as fast as they could, but many sandcrabs did not survive.
As one child put it, “Sandcrab Paradise had turned into Sandcrab Genocide.”
Victim of “Sandcrab Sanctuary”
If you are familiar with my camp and posts, you would know that every day I have a talk with my campers at lunch time that revolves around a certain topic. One of the days I decided to talk about the internet and figure out what my children tend to do on it.
One of the kids, an 11 year old boy, told me that he has a secret Twitter account and a secret dating website.
“Dating website?!?”
“Yeah. I filled out the survey on a dating website and it popped up with four matches! The matches were older than my mom though… Then there was this advertisement with a girl that said ‘This girl wants to be your girlfriend’ and I clicked it. I’m never. clicking. that. again!!!”
Hint, do not search “camgirl ads”
One of the perks of my blog is that with WordPress, you can see what people click on. One morning I was monitoring my stats, and I noticed that someone was clicking on every picture of me (to enlarge it). I didn’t think anything of it…
…until one of my campers came to camp with every single picture of me that he could find printed out. And he was passing them around his friend circle.
Well, I included pictures of other counselors in my Vegas post.
“Is that… MISS DANZA?!!? Oh my GOSH! That’s MISS DANZA!!!… woahhhhhhhhhh!!!”
Miss Danza lookin’ fine.
In our surf camp, we usually have a certain number of surfboards. One day, much to my surprise, we had acquired an extra one that didn’t match any of the others.
Confused, I remembered that there was a man tanning next to our summer camp with a surfboard around the same size and color as the camp’s. My campers had accidentally stolen it!
Thank you for your generous donation to the Y!
Laser Tag Punks
Hands down, this was my favorite week of the entire summer. This camp consisted of about 34 boys and 6 girls — all my favorite age group, and all of my favorite campers.
I guess you could say I get a little competitive, and this week definitely brought out this aspect of myself in a sometimes ugly manner. It didn’t help that the other male counselor was also, equally competitive.
Every morning we’d go to the beach and play a friendly game of dodgeball. The boys LOVED it and were pwning each other like n00bs left and right. Eventually, we had to make two rules
1. Balls to the face don’t count (the person can stay in).
2. Balls to the private region don’t count (the person can stay in).
BUT if you purposely try to get hit there, you’re out.
Every few seconds kids would yell, “HEY!!! NO BALLS TO BALLS!!!” and keel over in pain.
A few moments got a little too competitive, even for me. Especially when the male counselor hit another child in the private region so hard, the child curled up in a fetal position and cried. Another child chipped a tooth, and there was also the moment where all of my children began chanting, “WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT BLOOD!!!”
A few of the… ahem, less athletic… children were used as distractions/sacrifices. They’d run, crawl, cartwheel, or dance across the field yelling “DISTRACTIOOOOON!” Inevitably, these unfortunate children were always the first ones pegged.
During the second half of the day, we’d play laser tag at Ultrazone.
I now know with conviction that kids play too many violent video games.
The campers separated into three teams, Riptide’s Crew, Bubble Ninjas, and MIBs. The three best players all started off on Riptide’s Crew but were separated because that team happened to beat the other teams by over 10x the points. The Ultrazone lady announced the winners and the top three boys went, “awww mannnn!” and slumped down into their seats. The lady looked confused until I told her that being too good meant they had to be separated.
We went into the arena, guns and vests ready. I took shelter in a bunker and sniped the little pipsqueaks down below.
Then I heard a “help! helllp!”
Five members of the Bubble Ninjas had cornered a small and frail MIB and circled around the MIB Russian Roulette style. When you get shot, your lights on your vest go off for five seconds — you’re disarmed during that time. The MIB had his arms spread against the wall and I never saw his lights turn on.
I heard one of the Bubble Ninjas say, “keep ’em up Mother Trucker if you don’t wanna get pistol whipped.” The Bubble Ninja had his gun cocked sideways like a gangster.
I bolted down to save the MIB and the Bubble Ninjas tried to corner me as well. The MIB looked to me with gratitude and escaped behind me… but not without shooting one of the Bubble Ninjas before he disappeared into the darkness. I saw the MIB raise his small arm and fist bump in the air as he ran away.
After this game, I implemented a no-acting-like-a-gangster rule.
I also made top 10 in the rankings.
So you wanna be in the Bubble Ninjas… do ya?
At lunch time most of the children would relax on plastic chairs and eat their grub. However, a few of the campers spent their time attempting to disgust me to a lost appetite.
One of my campers was eating a neon green Jell-o cup. He said, “Look!” and swallowed his Jell-o in one loud slurp.
Then he regurgitated it back into the cup.
And swallowed it again.
He repeated this process a few times, with each time the Jell-o becoming less and less transparent. It started to turn a murky puce green and had little pepperoni chunks suspended within the Jell-o (he had had a hot pocket during snack time).
I started to feel queasy and told him to stop… He raised his arms in protest, holding the Jell-o cup full of the remnants of his regurgitation show. He brought his arms down, and flung the Jell-o all over an innocent camper trying to relax and enjoy his meal.
Everyone’s faces dropped… the innocent camper sniffed the Jell-o substance splattered all over his legs and asked, “WHAT IS THIS?!”
Not the Jell-O!!!
The Next Legolas
I cringed at my schedule assignment — Archery camp.
Archery children are known for being especially violent and I only recognized a few names on the roster. Oh, great.
Monday comes and I am pleasantly surprised. All of my children seem to be perfect little angels — almost to a creepy extent.
During dodgeball, the children would say, “Ok! I’m throwing it at you now… are you ready? Cover your head!” and warn each other before the pegging began. Sometimes it wasn’t even pegging! Their throws resembled granny shots taken in a basketball game at Disneyland. It was weird for me to see, especially compared to my laser kids. When a child fell and hit his head, about four other campers fled the scene. Typical, I thought. campers darting out of responsibility was not a new sight for me.
Much to my surprise, the four who fled came back carrying ice packs from their lunches to give to the injured child.
By Thursday, I was completely at ease thanks to my nonviolent children.
Which is precisely the state one evil camper wanted me to be in.
We have a rule where if you take your arrow out of the quiver before it’s time to shoot, the arrow gets taken away.
One child was running around with his arrow held high above his head in a clasped fist while yelling, “JAVELIN!” The other children came running to me to tattle. I asked javelin boy to please give me his arrow and that he would probably get it back later.
The boy picked up his arrow (yes, like a javelin) and threw it straight at my chest. It actually hurt a bit!
He was sent home five minutes later.
The next day, javelin boy came back but we made sure to keep our distance. He was behaving and even told me “good job” for shooting the Zombie that we had pinned to the target right in the eye!
You want me on your team for the apocalypse.
A mother who spoke no English came up while we were playing and signaled to her car where her baby was locked inside, windows rolled up. I called the fire department to come unlock the baby from the car.
I told the other counselors that I’d be right back and the children hardly noticed my absence…
…until the firetruck came with the signals blaring.
Apparently the children (who had witnessed the incident the day before) thought that javelin boy had shot me and that I was being taken away!
The counselors and I shot an incident report — a form you fill out when campers get really evil.
Some other notable moments:
A six year old from another camp showed me his fortune teller. Pick a number, any number! I was pleasantly surprised when I was shown number one.
One boy in my camp had a British accent — the other campers thought this was cool and attempted to mimic him. “Ahhr ya gewin tew gah gah pahk?”
“What?” I’d respond, “suck your tongue in your mouth when you talk, I can’t understand you.”
Their British accents sounded like they had all become tongue amputees.
One child then retorted, “well I want to do everything I can to honor London — that’s why I rooted for the British in the Olympics. We need some way to pay the English for giving us Dr. Who!”
Good sportsmanship after a rough game.
I went to the football game of one of my absolute favorite campers and got to sit with one of my other favorite campers, his little brother!
The best company for football a football game I’ve ever had.
Alien eyes!
The older brother scored THREE touchdowns in this game — it also happened to be his first game as quarterback. I was more than proud!
It should also be said that these two are talented at everything! Laser tag, surfing, sports, lanyards, you name it. My future kids have a lot to live up to.
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Or check out my other posts about camp!
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
A Typical Day at Summer Camp
I’ve been bad, and have already skipped a week of updating my (supposed to be weekly) camp series. But, this is my blog so I can do whatever I want and break my own rules. And there’s also the small fact that I haven’t acquired enough regular readers to feel too guilty about it… yet!
Last week I ran Splash Camp which is basically a group of 5 to 12 year olds. It may not seem like a huge age span, but it is. You have kids that need help going to the bathroom and kids who want to talk about puberty and have the Bieber-fever (correlation?). Getting these same children to play the same game fairly? Quite difficult. A 12 year old can kick a ball hard enough to lay out a 5 year old and knock out a few baby teeth prematurely.
Despite the creativity it took to entertain all of these children, (shout out to my awesome staff that week!) we had a great time.
One of my campers, a 12 year old, really wanted to Irish dance for the rest of the campers. Part of me was hesitant to comply with this request — she had no idea how short the other children’s attention spans are! The rest of me was ecstatic at the thought of a break from constant planning.
The other campers circled around her after she put on her Irish dancing shoes… and clapped as she danced around. The kids LOVED it! It started this huge trend where every child wanted to come up and display their “talents.”
Some notable performances followed.
A boy who is obsessed with The Titanic — literally obsessed sort of bounced around with his legs kept straight and swiveling around randomly. I feared he would topple over and give himself a concussion because he looked as though he was getting electrocuted over and over and over after his body had set into a rigor mortis-like stiffness. He swore that his dance was an exact replica of the dance done in The Titanic… nobody remembers the river dance in Titanic but it was entertaining nonetheless.
Riverdancing Jack and Rose
Next came my favorite duo, two five year old friends who I like to called the “nuggets.” They stepped into the circle and one nugget began to beat-box with his hat tilted sideways, sunscreen streaked all over his face. To the beat of the spitty beat box, the other nugget began break dancing by spinning around on his rotund little belly. They continued to randomly break dance throughout the rest of the week with unbearable cuteness.
Another girl sang the theme song from Arthur. I smiled nostalgically at the familiar tune but also wondered how such a bad theme song had stuck around for almost 20 years.
Mr. Ratburn still freaks me out
Then there was… the wizz incident.
The bad thing about 5 year olds is they tell you when they have to use the restroom… after they have most likely already used the restroom in their clothing. We went to the beach on Friday and I was beginning to get suspicious after seeing a few children digging holes in an isolated plot of sand within our cone boundaries… soon to be covered up and accompanied by a sewer-like smell.
To the children’s defense, we were over a five minute walk away in the hot desert sand to the gnarly bathrooms. Finally, a few girls told me they had to go to the bathroom NOW, and that it couldn’t wait. A fellow counselor took the girls to the ocean to do their business… when a 5 year old boy catches wind of what’s happening and decides to join.
Before any counselor can stop him, he pulls down his Finding Nemo trunks and begins to go as well. Thankfully a counselor was able to catch him before any other campers caught wind of what was happening… but one girl may have been hit by the stream. May have.
The children put a whole new meaning into roaring waters
One child came running up to me bawling his eyes out. I asked him “what’s wrong?”
“I have….
“I think I have….
He put his little nub fingers up to his face and outlines a circle on his cheek the size of a penny.
“…A SUNBURN!!!!!”
Sunburns are the most frustrating to deal with at camp because I only order a million sunscreen application commands per day. “Okay little dudes! Before we get off the bus/go to the park/go to the bathroom we’re going to put on sunscreen and have a snack! Remember! Your sunscreen is not your snack!”
They resist putting on sunscreen–willing to endure the worst 3rd degree burn in exchange for one minute of laziness. I’ve tried every tactic, smelling them, looking for the shine, nothing was working. Smelling them got weird after one child yelled, “SMELL MY FACE!” and winked at me.
Suddenly, it clicked. I ducked into a corner for a minute and squirted a dollop of sunscreen in my hand.
“Okay campers. If you want to swim you must have your swim dot or your warrior streaks!” The kids lined up and I painted their faces with lines of sunscreen and swim dots… The pastier the kid, the more he or she was warriorfied with sunscreen. They loved it and proudly touted their sunscreened faces. The next day they lined up without prompting, solemnly waiting for their war paint.
Homeboy is ready to swim
This week, I had Waterworld Camp — and was able to work with my favorite age group (9-12) because this age generally understands sarcasm and we can move from conversations about whether dogs or cats are fluffier and onto a more existential type of conversation–such as do humans really not remember being a baby? Or was life so boring as a baby that it’s not worth remembering? Obviously riveting and mindblowing discourse takes place when you get to ages 9 and up.
Monday, we went to Knott’s Soak City and my group, named “Not Afraid” went straight to our favorite ride — the “Drop Off”
Red slide on the right is “The Drop Off”
Note: We changed the name to “Riptide’s Crew” after my kids turned bright red because I yelled “Not Afraid group! Gather here!” in front of teenagers — Riptide happens to be my camp nickname…but the five year olds call me “Miss Reptile” -___-
When you go off the Drop Off, you’re instructed to cross your legs and arms. The ride is a vertical slide that bottoms out at the end.
I watch the first camper go down the slide and wince because his legs are completely spread open and there is a stream of water shooting straight up from the force of the water funneled between his legs. He gets to the bottom and is shrieking… after a few seconds of wincing and adjusting his shorts, he waddles over to me in obvious pain.
“That was the biggest wedgie I’ve ever had.”
He catches his breath and a few more children survive the Drop Off.
Then I hear, “WE GOT ANOTHER SPREADER!” Once again, another child has his legs spread to a 45 degree angle and the plume of water is making its way down the slide.
This child too waddles up to me and says, “I haven’t felt that since I was like four!”
I didn’t ask any questions.
He continues, “…when my grandma gave me an enema!”
The elastic had stretched out in his shorts from all the water going through, he had to hold his pants up with both hands. He bonded with the other spreader, they waddled their way together throughout the rest of the day–sharing the aftermath from the experience of the atomic wedgie.
The Pacific Spin, another beloved ride.
We went to the beach and a few of the younger children were staying on shore to build sandcastles. I’d ask if they needed help, they all said no — obviously wanting to work as independent builders. I grew bored of simply watching them while the other kids splashed around in the waves. Every once in a while, a child who had been to Aquarium camp at another company the week would before would come up and show me a molting sand crab, a pregnant sand crab, bubble algae, barnacles…. etc.
I called the children in the sand one by one and asked, “do you know about the secret mission?”
“No…”
“Okay, that’s all I needed to know. Thanks! You can go back and play now!”
“What do you mean secret mission!?” they’d all ask… as their eyes grew wide with interest.
I’d make them pinky swear they’d never say a word to the others about the “secret mission” and began to put each one of them in charge of “different investigations.”
I told one child that there was a secret black market of sand crab dealing going on at camp. Children were sneaking sand crabs back to camp’s ‘home base’ and exchanging them for rare colors of lanyard string.
After I told one child this, I could see his brain working to start putting clues together. He immediately named a child he thought was the dealer — a young brunette girl with big green eyes, because “she really liked lanyard string and her mom won’t buy it for her at Michael’s.”
“That’ll do for now… thanks for your help.”
He walked back to his sandcastle and suspiciously watched the Aquarium camp kid innocently digging up sand crabs from the corner of his eyes.
I continued a similar mission for each child — making each mission different. I need to find the kid who buried my binder, didn’t put the lid on the sunscreen, stole a cone… at random parts throughout the day I’d yell, “Secret investigators! How’s your mission going!?” and they’d put a thumbs up. The older kids looked confused but shrugged it off.
James Bond… or camper?
A few of the campers began to get in a water fight using the water from the cooler. I made a rule that the water fighters couldn’t get more water until they finished the water that was in their bottles. A few of them began chugging their water and asked for a refill… well, they began fighting once again. I yelled, “CHUG!!!” They chugged two more bottles.
The bus came and after ten minutes the boys began to whimper. One screamed, “I NEED TO SQUEEZE MY LEMON!”
We still had twenty minutes left until we got back… Their knuckles began to turn white from clenching the seats.
I stood up at the end of the bus ride and decided to do a few annoucements. I started my speech, “Okkkkayyyy we’re going to go over the best parts of our week and reminisce for a little while!”
The water chuggers screamed in uproar, “YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!!!”
“Anyone want to tell me about their favorite part of Monday?” I asked.
The chuggers were getting seriously angry and started making their way towards me.
I finally let them go, they beelined it to the porto potties at lightning fast speed dropping their backpacks off as they ran. One child almost fell because he turned a sharp corner too fast. A few parents who were waiting for their children laughed at the scene.
Finally, we were talking about good things to come. One 10 year old boy says, “next year… I’m gonna start puberty and it’s gonna be flippin’ awesome!”
What are you looking forward to?
I’m starting a weekly blog post that harvests the best moments of camp from that particular week (except for this week, I’m on vacation!). I’ve already explained the general gist of a typical day at camp. The following stories and quotes are an accumulation from my first three weeks this summer: Bowling camp, surf camp, and water world camp.
Quotes and Stories from Campers:
“I was late to camp this morning because mommy and daddy got in a fight. Daddy got an eharmony account!” – 9 year old girl being checked into camp.
“If you play hard to get you’ll be able to share a slurpee in no time… out of the same straw, like I have.” – 11 year old boy’s advice on obtaining true love.
Slurpee Machines of Love
One of the other counselors was hosting a sandcastle competition and one of the kids was slaving away at his castle (“Seaweed Paradise”). Five campers start sprinting towards me screaming to go help the little builder. He was laying on the ground kicking his legs everywhere. There was a bee that stung the top of his foot and the bee refused to get off, stinger ingrained in his skin. So I tell him to stay still and while I got the stinger out, and he screamed… “WHAT EATS BEES! WHAT ANIMAL EATS BEES???! I HATE BEES AND IM GONNA ASK FOR AN ANIMAL THAT EATS BEES FOR MY BIRTHDAY JULY 23, I HATE BEES! IM NEVER EATING HONEY AGAIN!!!”
Cretin of Evil
A 6 year old girl came up to me with curly blonde hair and big green eyes and asked, “Do you have a brother?” I told her I had a step brother. She asks, “Do you ever just want to…” and placed her tiny hands around her neck and her eyes started to bulge out, “strangle him? Like DIE DIE DIE STOP MOVING JUST DIE ALREADY!!!… ?”
We ventured to the the waterpark a few days this past week. I was starting to get concerned because none of the boys asked to go to the bathroom for the entire day and began whispering about “yellow rivers.” It didn’t help that I saw a few questionable brown streaks on the sides of some of the slides. I literally sensed the conjunctivitis starting to set in. After a short and awkward talk with the campers about making sure to take bathroom breaks, a 10 year old blond boy puts lifts his raft up so that his face was in the middle of the hole, and a puzzled look sets in…
“If they didn’t want us to pee on the rides, then why did they shape the rafts like huge toilet seats?”
Oversized Toilet Seat… womp wommmp.
The kids wear highlighter yellow rashguards whenever they go into the ocean. Rashguards deserve a whole other post in itself because there is a lot of manipulation amongst the children that goes on in order to get one that doesn’t smell like the urine filled corners of a subway station. We got a new shipment of rashguards this week.,. but unbeknowngst to me, they were about 3 sizes too small for even our smallest of campers. Let’s just say the children who put the rashguards on before snack time breathed much easier than those who waited until after snack time to put on their second skin.
“SUCK IT IN!!! SUCK IT IN!!!” I screamed as they struggled and gasped for air slipping on their rashguards. An eight year old whines, “ugh. These feel like Spanx.” How an eight year old knew what wearing Spanx feels like? I have no idea. I then called out, “If Beyonce can wear Spanx to the Grammys, you can wear these rashguards in the ocean.”
The “Spanx affect” warranted different reactions from different kids. One 10 year old boy screamed, “I feel so skinny!!!” while running around with his stomach sucked in. Another 9 year old girl looked down at her stomach and said, “I don’t like how it pinches my fat. I feel chubby.”
Spanx, now found at your local summer camp!
I host a series of “Would you rather?” questions whenever there is a free minute to simply relax with the kids (usually on the bus, during snack, in lines). I asked the children if they’d rather find true love or eat a 100 foot long fruit by the foot. The children unanimously voted for the fruit by the foot and one child chimed, “because it’d definitely be longer lasting.”
I’d also like to note that children have a solid vote on if they would rather eat cat treats, dog treats, or rabbit pellets — they claim their opinions are based on experience.
Lanyard Confessionals
There are these things called lanyards at camp–a series of stitches made with two plastic strings that makes a long chain. Lanyard culture is huge and there’s a heirarchy of lanyard artisans. The first time campers basically tie knots and make the rookie mistake of calling them “lanterns.” Seasoned campers know how to make them “twisty,” three stringers, five stringers, and I once saw an eight stringer twisty back in the summer of 2010. They’re kind of a big deal. The older kids hunger for more string, doing whatever they can to get their little nubs on the latest colors. Some children give their lanyards away to their favorite counselors, a coveted token of appreciation second only to silly bands. Just for the record, I’ve already been given 6 lanyards this summer. One was even a twisty.
I’ve figured out how to harness this lanyard hunger by implementing what I like to call, lanyard confessionals. On Monday and Tuesday I had the children tell me a rule of camp (listen to the counselors, hands to yourselves, no putting body parts out of the bus windows). Then, by Wendesday, I have them confess a rule they broke that they vow never to break again. It’s interesting because some of the children who break the biggest rules always casually drop a small rule they broke. For example, one kid stabbed another in the chest with a woodchip but will confess he needs to stop talking whenever the counselors are talking -___-. For others, it’s the opposite. I’ll ask what rule a seemingly angelic kid needs to work on and he’ll confess that he basically windmill kicked Jimmy in the face and told Jimmy that he’d kill him if Jimmy dared speak a word of the incident. My favorite confession is from a camper explaining that when his buddy asked him to put sunscreen on his back, the the confessor wrote “U SUK” with streaks of sunscreen but “quickly rubbed it in.”
Lanyard confessionals are a really great way to figure out what’s going on at camp.
Lanyards of glory
One day, we had to spend a few hours at “Home Base” — a field, basketball court, some picnic tables, and about 7 porto potties. One of the porto potties was out of commission. We knew this because in children’s handwriting, an “Out of Order” sign had been taped onto the front of it. This was legitimate enough because children will pretty much weather any fecal storm — when they agree it’s out of order, it is out of order. While we were at Home Base, a septic tank on wheels pulled up while my children were playing “Pacman Tag” on the basketball court. A burly man comes out with blue gloves with mysterious brown stains on them. I didn’t want to think about it for too long and prayed he wouldn’t offer to shake my hand. He looked at the porto potty, looked at the kids, and asked if there was another time he could come back because it’s “not safe” to fix the porto potty with so many children around.
His words made my imagination go wild with images of feces splattering my harmless little youngin’s playing together peacefully on the basketball court. Still, I knew I could use this information to my advantage. I told the children that since they were so good, the porto potty was going to get fixed another day and that they wouldn’t get rained upon with… you know what. My message had the underlying threat that if they were bad, the poop shrapnel would return another time while they were there. The children cheered “HIP HIP HOORAY!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!” (with a little help from the counselors) as the septic tank drove out of the parking lot.
Revenge of the porto potty
This summer we also received splinter removers in our first aid kits. They’re kept in small packages and I didn’t want to waste one by opening it and seeing what they looked like. I was legitimately unethically happy when my first camper came running to me with a splinter in his hand because I finally had a chance to use one of these bad boys.
He sat in front of me while I told him, “I’m really excited to use this on you! I’ve never even gotten a chance to see what it looks like before!” He started laughing and curiously looked into the packaging. A shocked and scared instantly took place on his face when he saw my pull out a metal disk with a small, sharp, knife-like point on the end of it. His eyes grew wide and he pulled his hand away lightning fast… “my splinter doesn’t hurt anymore. Can I please go play back on the playground? Please, please, it doesn’t hurt anymore!”
Sadly, I let him free with a band-aid over his splinter and had to wait an entire week before the next child got a splinter… actually, I got a plethora of children with splinters thanks to the stealth thorn patch hidden in the grass at the waterpark! My splinter removers were put to good use that day!
Chantae Was Here 