P went to her first summer camp this week. She is doing a performance art camp with Open Heart. When I read through all the camp would entail, I thought it would be perfect for her. She loves to sing, dance, and dress up....all the things the camp offered. It was only three days for a little over two hours each day.
The first day of camp bubbies and I stayed the whole time because I thought she "needed" me there with her. When we first got there she said she wanted to go home and kept walking towards the car. I had to talk her into staying and show her that mommy was having a great time, which meant that she could too if she gave it a shot. She ended up loving it. It was a fun day of puppets, dressing up, and playing. I actually was having a tremendous time, but I wasn't the person it was for...ahem...so I tried to back off and watch my little girl do her thing and wrangle the boy. P did great. She loved hanging out with Anima & Pete, the puppeteers/actors, and loved Heidi, who is the owner/creator of the camp. She was thrilled that she was going to get to go back and play with everyone again when Wednesday rolled around.
When we got home the first day we talked about what she did, how she liked it, and how she got to dress up in a princess ballerina costume (that alone made it pretty worthwhile). I wasn't worried about taking her back on Wednesday, but I was worried about how I was going to handle it because I wanted to drop her off and leave. Part of me thought it was good practice for preschool, but part of me struggled with leaving her. I didn't want to leave her but I kind of felt I had to. I mean, c'mon, it was only for two hours. Yeah, two hours. Two very long hours for mama.
I spoke with Heidi and she assured me P would be fine and she would do everything she could to make her comfortable. Heidi told me the last thing planned was snack-time, so I told P I'd pick her up after snack. Friend Susan just took her daughter to preschool camp a few weeks ago, and said to tell P something concrete such as "I'll pick you up after snack" rather than "I'll come get you in a couple of hours." They don't really get time at this age - but they will remember that mommy will get them after they have a snack. It worked! P was more than happy to stay with Heidi, gave me a hug good-bye, and an enormous hug hello when I picked her up. I really missed her for two hours...and I cried off and on for those two hours b/c I missed her so much and hoped she was having fun. I know she'll read this one day and say "mommm - you're a dork."
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