I Swear He Grew Three Years While He Was Gone

We knew that Micah would love Camp Parc, that's why we signed him up. But we had reservations. And when he realized that we had intentions of leaving him there, he tried locking himself in the van that first night. It went downhill from there rather quickly. I mentioned that his cries were heard as I walked to the van, but I didn't mention that he was being physically restrained from following us, and those cries were more like screams of help and abandonment.

It was a long 3 days. I called the camp a few hours after we left him and was reassured that he settled in, but I still had some apprehension. Tonight was the last night for our reluctant camper, and the families were invited to a dinner and end program for their campers to show off in before we could bring them home.

We wondered. He'd be glad to see us, of course, but his reaction would tell us exactly what his week had been like. If he ran up to hug us, then tried desperately to wrap himself onto my leg and refused to participate in the carnival going on around him, we'd know his week was one from hell itself. But if he ran to hug us, then grabbed our hands to show us around so that we'd know all the people he met and the fun he had, his week would have been pretty good and we could confidently send him back next year.

It took a while for Micah to spot us out by the oak tree. "Mom! Dad! Mom! Dad!" he yelled as he ran to wrap his arms around me. And then he hugged Becky, and ran to the van. Not a good sign. At all. His personal counselor guided him back to us, and then he remembered that there were carnival games to be played. For the next hour, we didn't even exist to the kid. He ran from game to game as we tagged along, and he didn't even care - or notice - when we lagged several games behind so that we could enjoy the shade of that oak tree again.

The boy had a very good week at camp. A very good week indeed. In fact, if we weren't so thrilled that he loved it as much as we thought he might, we'd be a little hurt that we're so easily forgotten for 3 days.

My baby is not a baby any longer.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

So glad he had a good time!! Love that picture :) Even though he is growing up he will always be your baby :)

tehamy said...

I love his expression in the picture! So happy he had a good time!

Burgh Baby said...

I'm glad he forgot you existed. :-)

Michelle said...

I'm so glad he had a great time! I recently heard of Camp Parc on the Ds listserv (at least I think it is the same one that a poster emailed about.)

I have been considering sending Kayla to Camp Victory Junction, but it is a full week and I'm just not sure ... yet. I mean, how will I handle not knowing what she is doing every second of the day (its hard enough when she's at school!) and just not KNOWING how her days went and what she did because she can't fully tell me. It's so hard to let go isn't it?!