"Charles!"
"Charles, please play four square with me!"
Ladies and gentlemen, the time of the year has come. When kids takeover your local TopGolf and conquer your local playground from the hours of 9am to 4pm.
Summer camp.
As such an experienced counselor, I've seen it all. I've dealt with the tiniest of bullies and the largest of crybabies.
If you're hearing the same squeaky, innocent voices in your head I am, you'll know what I'm talking about.
1. Picking favorites
Every summer you're assigned to a new set of kids and adjusting to a bunch of new behaviors. Some kids you can tolerate and others you can't but if you end up putting your spotlight on a few kids, you're going to be hearing an ear-load from single moms when it's pick-up time.
2. Weather mood swings
When it's 75 with a slight breeze, the kids are my best friends. Everyone's a happy camper (pun intended). If it goes higher than 99 and I can feel my skin burning, you feel trapped in an chamber filled with Lunchables & UnCrustables gas.
3. Waking up and making yourself lunch
I'm already struggling to wake up 8am on weekdays but now I have to find a way to function well enough to organized a well-balanced lunch. Unfortunately, I'm always left with two options: Grab left-over frozen pizza from last night and fill a water bottle with Sunny-D or leeching off kids' lunches by promising more kickball time.
4. Staying later because someone's mom works half-an-hour away from the camp's location.
PSA for parents: Register your kid in summer camps in your PARK district, not all over the county.
5. Restraining from posting Snapchat stories of the reality show that is summer camp.
According to my contract, it's a liability issue to post any pictures of the kids without the parents' consent. Understandable but think about how funny it would be watching little AJ try to run up the slide in slo-mo.
6. Being too competitive in kick-ball
Okay, I admit to being the counselor that holds your kid for a solid 3-seconds before he runs to second base. I'm sorry but at the same time, team Charles was 0-5 all last summer and I'm starting to lose the respect of the other counselors.
7. Sleeping on the clock
After playing a few board games & playing freeze-tag for the first 3 hours of camp, I'm exhausted. Luckily, Hailey and her twin keep me very awake by reciting every soundtrack from Frozen.
8. Trying to escape the kids on field trips
Funway isn't my first-choice of leisure but it's Friday and the kids want to release their everlasting energy at an arcade. After a few hours of running around screaming, the kids are beat and that's my cue to dip off to the bathroom and update my friends if I can make it tonight.
And as soon as I close the stall, little Tommy suddenly needs me to tie his shoes before he gets in the GoKart.
9. Playing on the playground
The warfare of the wood-chips has already struck my mind and I have too many nightmares of slipping while playing tag with the fastest kids in camp.
For the summer camp mommies and daddies reading this, please remember one thing:
We deal with your kids 40 hours per week, you only have to deal with them on evenings & weekends.
