My son went off a few hours ago to his first camp,
which is an annual event put on by our Church and last for a week. This happens
to also be the first time he will be away from home for an extended period of
time and so I have been taking comfort in the fact that I have due reason to be
feeling such anxiety. I am comforted in the fact though, that a couple other
children from Church, one of which is his cousin and another, his best buddy, (who his parents sent only because our son was going), is there.
I have been missing my boy a lot and so I have
resorted to using this as my post today, just to see if I will feel better.
This past week, as camp drew near, I realized that I
was feeling a lot of anxiety. First of all, he will be about 4 hours away, on
the other side of the country and it just freaks me out to imagine these little
ones sitting in a bus for all this time. The other thing is, how competent is
the driver? I remember saying to my husband a couple times this past week, that
I hope whoever the driver is, knows that he is carrying precious cargo and many
of these kids are only children, so this makes them all the more special. I know
they will have a safe journey though, because prayer was said over them and I
know God is control.
There goes my anxiety over just the journey, As you can well imagine, I do have others,
like how well will he be taken care of, as he has not yet mastered taking a bath,
brushing his teeth and cleaning himself after using the toilet. He is afraid of
being alone and he is terrified of the dark. At nights, he asks that his
father tuck him into bed and will not settle down for sleep unless his father
is snuggled up in bed with him. We tried to prepare him, by telling him that
his daddy won’t be around to tuck him into bed and asked if he wanted to take his
pillow pet, which would serve the purpose of pillow and something to cuddle and
go to sleep. He responded like a big boy would, I want to take my regular
pillow and so we take it that he will sort himself out at bed time. I know
there will be adults there to help them, but as any parent can attest to, no
one takes care of your child as good as you.
On a much lighter note, the setting for our Church
camp is usually a school out in the countryside and so the classrooms become dormitories. My son seems
to think that he will be camping in a tent outdoors (thanks to television) and
even though we tried to explain to him, he does not seem to get it. Last night
before he went to bed, he was building a forte and saying that he was practicing
for camp. I decided to let him be and even helped him out a bit. I guess when he arrives at camp and see that
the setting is totally different from what his little mind has conjured up, he
will be disappointed.
They should be getting there soon and the organizers told
us that they will call when they have arrived and so my husband and I are anxiously
waiting for this call, as we contemplate how we will spend this time without
him and wait with open arms to greet him and hear all about his adventure, when
he returns.
image by:
http://www.google.com.jm/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=961&q=a+camping+we+will+go&oq=a+camp&gs_l=img.1.3.0l10.1273.2481.0.5402.6.6.0.0.0.0.111.564.3j3.6.0....0.0..1ac.1.20.img.2ZFTB3zXUkA#facrc=_&imgrc=JNN2IPs_Yh3K0M%3A%3B05Eph6w11M2D7M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252F1.bp.blogspot.com%252F_zXYMlB9xnAc%252FTDgEAWkl4KI%252FAAAAAAAAAjI%252F7pB6DMnqdfE%252Fs320%252Fcampfire.JPG%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Flearningandteachingwithpreschoolers.blogspot.com%252F2010%252F07%252Fcamping-we-will-go.html%3B1600%3B1200
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