summer camp

This was our first week of real summer camp - the kind with the big yellow bus and long days and tired happy kids coming home at dinner.

I wasn’t sure it would feel like summer.

Instead, I found myself loving the strange rhythm of it: mornings together, quiet afternoons apart, and long silly evenings reconnecting.

Warm pancakes in the car. Tiny observations on the drive. Wild camp stories that may or may not be true. Barbie talent shows. Ken losing his pants.

And maybe a reminder that this stage of parenting has a different rule than sleep when the baby sleeps:

rest while your kid plays.

hosted by Kathy Patalsky

healthyhappylife.com

IG: KathyPatalsky + notes.kathy

Transcript

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There's no pictures sent. There's no report card given. There's just me looking at her face at the end of the day and seeing her tired and happy. And that's all I wanted. You're listening to Notes with Kathy Petalski. Today's episode, summer camp. We've been off school for about a week and a half now, but this week was the first week that actually felt like summer. Because this was our first week of camp. And not the type of camp that we've kind of done before, where you go for three, maybe five hours. This was our first real all-day summer camp. The kind with a bus, with transportation. The kind of camp where you drop them off at eight in the morning and you don't see them again until they roll back around five o'clock, sunset, basically. And I always thought that these camps sounded kind of intense. Like, wait, my kid is gonna be gone all day long, like far away from me all day in the sun with people, with strangers, basically, teenagers that they call counselors. Aren't summers supposed to be together? But I take it all back. The moms who raved about these camps were absolutely right. You're not losing summer, you're just having a different sort of chunk of it at a different sort of time. So the brilliance of this all-day summer camp schedule is that I get these two favorite parts with her. I get morning and I get evening. Because let's be real, you guys, the middle of the day in the summer is usually kind of a shit show. The sun is at its hottest. Your kids are usually losing their steam around lunchtime, two o'clock, three o'clock. People are tired. They want to know what's going on. Mom wants to have a plan, and kids just want to watch their screen. And suddenly there's fights, there's arguments, there's what are we doing? I want to do this. No, we're doing this. And that middle of the day, it's just there's something about it that's stressful. Whenever I go to Disneyland, and this is completely off topic, but kind of applicable. So whenever I go to Disneyland, I either go in the morning or at golden hour because there's this chunk in the middle of the day around 12 to 3 o'clock when the sun is blaring on you, it's super hot, and you look around, and every kid is having a meltdown. I'm not kidding. Next time you go to Disneyland, notice this that middle of the day when you're like squinting at the sun, it's hot, you just want to eat dinner, but it's not dinner time yet. And everybody's tired. And that is the part of the day that mothers struggle with. And the brilliance of this all-day camp is that your kids still get that. I'm sure they're doing it at camp, but they get this whole kind of bus ride home or end of the day, whatever, to wind down before they come back to you. And then they're sleepy and they're kind of excited to see you, but they're a little worn down. Their edges have softened. So, anyways, I digressed a little bit there. But that's what it feels like to me. It feels like you're getting those two bookends of the day that I personally love the most, those mornings and those evenings. Especially when your kid is excited to go to camp. The mornings feel extra special together. And you wake up and you have this little bit of time, and then they're out the door onto adventures. In those mornings, they feel like warm pancakes, peach slices, a big sweatshirt, cool, foggy air. We're driving slowly through the neighborhood and we're looking at trees and we're raiding our neighbors' grass, and we're realizing wait, our grass isn't the only one that kind of gets brown in the summer. Other people have that too. And we're watching squirrels balance across electrical wires, like tiny typerope walkers. And then we pull into the bus stop, and the big shiny yellow bus is just sitting there humming and waiting. Her giant backpack and her tiny body climbed right onto that bus. She'd sit by the window making little hand motions at me. Mom, you're supposed to stay. Don't go back to your car, wave at me until the bus leaves. You can't look at your phone the entire time. So I did that. Heart hands waving, no phone. And then the bus disappears. And the weirdest part is I've been getting like eight hours to do whatever I want. Work, projects, momentum. But instead, I've kind of been craving rest. I sat outside, I drank a smoothie in the sun, I laid in a sunbeam with my cats. And that's always felt guilty to me, like, oh, I should be doing something. But I'm trying to phrase it like I'm resting. That is something. And as the day would tick on, I go to pick up early and I'd sit in my car with the windows open, the door open, while the sky turns gold and leaf shadows moved across my legs. A breeze through the air, and I can hear the little birds chirping in the trees. And all through those days, I would say, why am I so tired this week? I have childcare all day long. But then I think, well, you know what? School just ended. This year was huge. Big transitions, new school, new friends, showing up every single day to that school and trying to share yourself. Show your family, show your personality, show who you are, show up for your kid, make connections. There was so much pressure this year where we made it through, and that was a huge release. So I don't think I'm actually tired. I think I'm just finally letting go, exhaling a little. And the thing about camp, when you roll up to camp, there's parents in flip-flops and tank tops and messy jean shorts or giant comfy sweats. We all roll up with our kid, keys in hand, arms crossed, we smile at each other, we don't need to say much. Maybe we joke about something, and then that's it. You go on with your day. There's zero pressure, zero expectations. And it's kind of lovely for somebody like me who gets socially exhausted very often. And then once my kid comes off that bus, she runs and jumps to me, and she missed me so much. And I missed her too. And we pile in the car and she tells me stories. Like yesterday, she told me that her favorite part of the day was when everybody stomped through these giant mud puddles, and then they jumped in the pool to get clean, and then they got out and got muddy again. And honestly, I don't think that actually happened, but I just love the story because she wasn't giving me details. She was just saying, Mom, we had adventures today. We got messy, we had fun, and this was how it felt. And I love that. And then she told me about how she made a new friend and they did archery and she got on the red or the yellow. I don't really know. But she loved it. And then she rode a horse and she jumped in the pool and she played a game with the counselors. And these little tiny tidbits from her day are all I actually really need. Because the fact that she's out there on her own, being independent, having adventures that I know nothing about. There's no pictures sent, there's no report card given. There's just me looking at her face at the end of the day and seeing her tired and happy. And that's all I wanted. That was the only expectation I had for this type of a camp. Tired and happy. Because the thing is, she's getting old enough now to leave and come back with stories. The bus pulls away. She has wet hair and wet towel in her backpack. We go home and she does handstands on the couch while I give her veggie nuggets, pasta, a bowl of fruit, and then it's bath time. And we've been playing Barbies before bed lately. And last night, the storyline was talent show. So all the Barbies had to perform. And Ken got up and performed, I'm just Ken. Except the little snap on his shorts was broken. So unfortunate for him. So every 30 seconds he would get up there and dance and sing, and his pants would fall down. And the first time it happened, we just laughed so hard. And then it happened again and again. And we still kept laughing. And it's just the silliest little thing. Poor Ken. He just could not keep his pants on. Something about that late night Barbie session with music and Ken's pants falling down. That just felt like summertime. And so maybe the lesson this week is this when you have a newborn, you're supposed to sleep when the baby sleeps, right? Well, this stage needs its own little saying, you guys, because moms are just as tired. And quite frankly, my kid at this stage has more energy than that little newborn. So maybe the saying is this when your kid is out playing, when she's taken care of by somebody else, when you've outsourced childcare, if you can take a moment to rest. I know that's a lot. I know it's a privilege. When your kid is out playing this summer, try and rest and not feel guilty for doing that. Because when he or she comes back into your arms, they're gonna ask you to play Barbies all night long. And you're gonna need your energy. And so, anyways, that's been our first week of summer, and I am officially a fan of the all-day day camp where your kid leaves at the crack of dawn and comes home tired and happy at the end of the day. You get those bookends with them, the cool mornings, pancakes, and throwing on sweatshirts, and those evenings with the golden hour sunset light piling into the car all happy and tired, with not much ahead of you except cozy pajamas and dinner and bubble baths, and maybe a little playtime with Barbie. With Ken's pants falling down. So, whatever is on your summer schedule this week, I hope it includes a little silliness and fun and rest. Moms get rest. Lay down in the middle of the day because you really truly deserve it. This was Notes by Kathy Petalski. For more, follow Kathy on Instagram or visit healthyhappylife.com.