Saturday, June 23, 2012

Worst* Night of Camp 2: Electric Boogaloo

*This was the worst night for campers. If you've read my post, "Worst Night of Camp," that night was much worse than this night for me. Even if you haven't read that post, that night was still worse for me. I actually enjoyed the night about which I am going to write.

'Twas the first night of camp for the summer. I had just completed the Bible study for the evening and was about to bring my cabin to beach orientation when Kris, the water front director, informed me that the aqua challenge (where it is determined if kids are deep or shallow water swimmers) will not be held after beach orientation due to the impending rain. My kids and I went back to our cabin so they could change out of their swimming attire, and very shortly after I was informed that we would be heading to the party room. The party room is our storm shelter. We call it the party room because that sounds a lot more fun than storm shelter and the goal here is to not have the kids freak out.

Within the first two minutes of being in the party room, one of the campers (not mine, thank God) threw up. It was gross, as throw up usually is. Surprisingly, we somehow avoided the inevitable chain reaction of throw up that usually happens with children (and me). We still had to sit with the smell for about ten minutes, though.

In the party room, we usually sing the camp songs of the week until the storm passes and it's safe for us to go back to our cabins. This time, however, we ran out of camp songs, as the storm lasted for three hours. We then started to sing camp songs that weren't from that week. Mark and I were leading my all-time favorite camp song, Psalm 150, when the power went out. We flawlessly executed a distraction by singing louder, and since Psalm 150 is a call and response style of song, the kids sang louder, too, not even noticing that the power went out. Eventually, though, even after about 15 verses of "Peace," we were out of viable camp song options. Mark, Kris, and I then sang Adam Sandler's "Lunch Lady Land," and I feel like that went over pretty well. Mark and I then did an impression of Hootie and the Blowfish which, predictably, did not go over well because the kids have no idea who that is. As a last-ditch attempt to keep order in the party room, Mark and I performed a stirring rendition of the Flintstones theme song. I don't think the kids knew who the Flintstones were, either, so that didn't go as well as I had hoped, but it was a ton of fun for me.

Three hours after we arrived at the party room, the storm subsided and we were allowed to return to our cabins. It was still raining pretty hard, though. Once my kids and I got back to our cabin, I asked if any of them had to go to the bathroom. Of course, they all had to, so we all grabbed our flashlights (the power was still out) and began to leave. Just before I went out the door, I remembered I had a rain jacket. "Oh! I can wear my rain jacket, because I have one. Ha, ha, ha." After I had said this, about five of my seven campers remembered that their mothers made them bring a rain jacket, too. We all went down and went to the bathroom. When we got back, one of my campers took off his jacket with a huge smile on his face. "I'm so glad my mom makes me do stuff now!"

The power didn't come back on until about 10:45. All of my campers were still awake and they were very excited about the power returning. Since I had already yelled at them to be quiet about six times, though, they only uttered whispers of jubilation.

And we all slept happily ever after. The end.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Things I've Learned At Camp (So Far)

Camp is almost in full swing for the summer; staff training just finished up and on Sunday, campers will be coming. Even though I've already experienced life as a camp counselor last year, I feel like there are many things for me to learn. For instance, here are ten things I learned from the first week of staff training and the day camp I went on this last week.

1. A weed whacker doubles as a lawn mower and triples as a hedge trimmer.

2. When a kid poops her pants - twice - it does not decrease her cuteness at all.

3. When said kid says, "My mommy says I have soft stools," after pooping her pants, pooping her pants actually makes her cuter.

4. My "angry dad" voice scares kids like nothing else.

5. The best way to avoid the Lutheran theology seminar is to be sick.

6. The best meal of the day is late-night cereal.

7. There's no shame in going to bed at 9:30, even though it's summer.

8. Sometimes teddy bears are actually horrifying instead of cute (my host family had the most terrifying teddy bear I've ever seen. Like, seriously - this is the stuff from which nightmares are made).

9. If the meal is beef commercials and hashbrowns, I can put it down like Kobayashi.

10. Sometimes people will just steal your Cheez-Its and give them to the kids for snack.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Lifeguard Training

I'm at camp again now, guys, and this year, I decided to try to be a lifeguard here. In order to become lifeguard certified, though, I need to pass lifeguard training. I had lifeguard training tonight and, well, let's just say it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Actually, that's not true. It didn't go well, but I wasn't expecting it to go well at all. When people brought it up today, I would tell them that, too. Sure enough, since camp folk are genuinely nice folk, they would offer reassurance that I would certainly pass and that it's really easy, etc. I fought hard to not buy into their nonsense, but I was unsuccessful; they managed to make me believe that I could possibly pass it. Then we got to the pool.

We arrived at the pool half an hour before we were supposed to get there. We weren't aware of this, though. Well, actually, I was aware of this, but I didn't say anything because the site director here told me I needed to hurry to get there. Anyway, we all changed into our swimming attire and waited by the pool as a middle school swim team practiced. I actually have no idea if they were a middle school swim team or not, but there were some middle aged-ish girls swimming with two high school aged-ish girls "coaching." They kicked us out. The seven of us from camp sat in the hallway eating our bag lunches-that-were-actually-suppers until a high school kid came up and stood by us. Being the friendly folk that we are, we started to chat with the little youngster. We quickly learned that he was also doing lifeguard training. As soon as I heard that, I was struck by a realization: I'm gonna get shown up by this sophomore in high school. A few minutes later, our instructors arrived and the middle school team left.

After leaving the hallway and entering the pool area, I stood face-to-face with the pool. Well, I mean, not really because pools don't have faces, but you know what I mean. Anyway, what little confidence I had quickly vanished. The guy instructor (with whom my dad is good friends (I thought this could give me a leg up on the competition (there actually was no competition between potential lifeguards (there was a huge competition between all potential lifeguards and the pool, though)))) told us that before we start, we'd have to meet three prerequisites before we could continue with the class. The three prerequisites were retrieving a ten pound brick in 12 feet of water, treading water for two minutes without using your hands, and swimming 300 yards without stopping. When he said 300 yards we were all a little surprised - we were under the impression that we had to swim 550 yards. My hopes rose a little bit, but then we did the brick retrieval. The first three guys did it with no problem at all. This would raise some people's hopes, but not me. I thought, "There's no way. There's just no way. I can't do that." However, I got in the pool and watched the instructor toss the brick to the bottom of the pool. I swam over (much slower than the other guys, by the way) and began scanning the pool floor for the brick. I couldn't find it, but I was in the place where I saw it hit the water, so I decided to dive, anyway. Unfortunately, I am awful at diving. I stuck my head under water and kicked. I didn't go anywhere. I kicked again. Still didn't move. I kicked a third time and finally started to descend. I spiraled down to the bottom of the pool with my arm extended. In my head, I looked like Harry Potter reaching out for the snitch whilst on the edge of his broom. You know what I'm talking about. I grabbed the brick and looked up. I gave a powerful kick. I moved on the first kick this time, which was very reassuring for me. I kicked again and again. To my horror, I was only halfway to the surface. I began to kick frantically, releasing my inhaled breath. Gasping I reached the surface. I set the brick on my stomach and swam back to the side of the pool and got out.

Before I had time to celebrate in my head, the instructor told us to get back in the pool and tread water for two minutes without using our hands. I thought I could do this one. Nope. The four guys (including myself) jumped in and kept our hands above the water. After about thirty seconds I started to sink. I submerged my hands a few times (aka cheated) and the instructor let me get away with it. Then at the one minute mark I couldn't discreetly tread with my hands anymore (though it wasn't discreet to begin with, anyway), and I gave up.

I showered up and changed back into my clothes and expected to wait for only half an hour or so. Nope. I waited for THREE AND A HALF HOURS for the training to be over. It's really fun having three and a half hours of free time at a pool in a high school, especially when the high school is the one from which you graduated. There wasn't even anything for me to explore. And that's how I became a lifeguard.