Youngest leaves tomorrow for overnight camp.
I love seeing his excitement build up.
Because I remember it so well.
It got me thinking of how much camp has changed.
Here's how it used to be...
Saying you had swimmers ear was girl code for having your period.
You got out of swim lessons.
Some of us tried to get away with swimmers ear for an entire 8 weeks.
Camp back then was 4 weeks or 8.
The time has gone to 3 1 /2 or 7 weeks but the prices went up.
Go figure.
Some of the daily cleaning jobs consisted of being the "inspector", "dustpan" or my all time favorite; "bedrungs and windowsills".
Somehow an entire evening activity one year was cleaning out hair because of a lice epidemic.
Kid you not.
It has scarred us alumni.
There were things called "doody olympics" where boys got hung by their underwear on wedgie hooks.
Now we would be calling it child abuse.
I was also "forced" to wake up in the middle of the night to mop the bathroom floor.
I got counselor snack afterwards.
It was a blast.
We pinned our underwear together with safety pins before sending it off to laundry.
We would then make lists of what we were sending to laundry and would get it returned to us a week later.
Our whites were often then pink.
If the safety pins broke apart the head counselor would often hold up missing underwear or clothes to ask who they belonged to.
Embarrassment at its finest.
Now my kid shoves things into a laundry bag and gets it returned a few days later.
No fingers pricked from trying to get 10 pairs of socks onto one safety pin.
What the hell is the fun in that?
And not once has my kids sock been turned pink
We used baby powder to play jacks.
There was no salad bar.
There was no getting up during meal time unless you absolutely had to pee.
We swam in a lake.
I learned how to do a square stitch AND round stitch with gimp.
I learned what gimp was.
I was head of Arts and Crafts with very little artistic talent.
We learned what the smell of a sess pool was like and what it felt like to be asked to dance by a boy.
Now days-one large giant dance party.
We made up inappropriate words to songs and cheers and can still recite them to this day.
We can also probably still recite every camp cheer.
And at the end of our 8 weeks we cried uncontrollably because we would not see our summer family (who many lived only 30-45 minutes away from us)
It was a "toll call" to call each other (by phone. We TALKED on phones)
There was no social media, face time, or texts so we would actually write letters (with pens) to our besties, crushes or favorite counselors.
But what hasn't changed.. is the relationships.
The friendships are as real and strong as ever.
The living "10 for 2" still holds true.
I love that my kid just found out one of his counselors is a son of a friend of mine from camp.
It's such a warm feeling knowing that OUR camp is now giving the same relationships to our kids.
And the tears the last day?
Still there.
I love seeing his excitement build up.
Because I remember it so well.
It got me thinking of how much camp has changed.
Here's how it used to be...
Saying you had swimmers ear was girl code for having your period.
You got out of swim lessons.
Some of us tried to get away with swimmers ear for an entire 8 weeks.
Camp back then was 4 weeks or 8.
The time has gone to 3 1 /2 or 7 weeks but the prices went up.
Go figure.
Some of the daily cleaning jobs consisted of being the "inspector", "dustpan" or my all time favorite; "bedrungs and windowsills".
Somehow an entire evening activity one year was cleaning out hair because of a lice epidemic.
Kid you not.
It has scarred us alumni.
There were things called "doody olympics" where boys got hung by their underwear on wedgie hooks.
Now we would be calling it child abuse.
I was also "forced" to wake up in the middle of the night to mop the bathroom floor.
I got counselor snack afterwards.
It was a blast.
We pinned our underwear together with safety pins before sending it off to laundry.
We would then make lists of what we were sending to laundry and would get it returned to us a week later.
Our whites were often then pink.
If the safety pins broke apart the head counselor would often hold up missing underwear or clothes to ask who they belonged to.
Embarrassment at its finest.
Now my kid shoves things into a laundry bag and gets it returned a few days later.
No fingers pricked from trying to get 10 pairs of socks onto one safety pin.
What the hell is the fun in that?
And not once has my kids sock been turned pink
We used baby powder to play jacks.
There was no salad bar.
There was no getting up during meal time unless you absolutely had to pee.
We swam in a lake.
I learned how to do a square stitch AND round stitch with gimp.
I learned what gimp was.
I was head of Arts and Crafts with very little artistic talent.
We learned what the smell of a sess pool was like and what it felt like to be asked to dance by a boy.
Now days-one large giant dance party.
We made up inappropriate words to songs and cheers and can still recite them to this day.
We can also probably still recite every camp cheer.
And at the end of our 8 weeks we cried uncontrollably because we would not see our summer family (who many lived only 30-45 minutes away from us)
It was a "toll call" to call each other (by phone. We TALKED on phones)
There was no social media, face time, or texts so we would actually write letters (with pens) to our besties, crushes or favorite counselors.
But what hasn't changed.. is the relationships.
The friendships are as real and strong as ever.
The living "10 for 2" still holds true.
I love that my kid just found out one of his counselors is a son of a friend of mine from camp.
It's such a warm feeling knowing that OUR camp is now giving the same relationships to our kids.
And the tears the last day?
Still there.
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