TimmyDaddy: Summer Camp Panic

By Tim Sullivan

Here’s yet another reason why every day should be teacher appreciation day:  summer camp. Once our children graduate from the year-round cocoon of preschool, we were met with a childcare chasm that in Georgia spans from the end of May until the beginning of August. Bridging that gap can seem a bit like, well, building an actual bridge. Frantic emails from friends and parents of Elliott’s classmates hit Kristen and me mid-winter asking what we are going to do about summer camp. We both work, so we took the cue that it was time for us to panic too.

Critiques rolled in and no longer do I snicker when someone says “zoo camp” or “circus camp,” in fact, I lean in. Some reviews are tediously parental:   “Drop off at the southwest entrance and be sure NOT to get out of the car or Gigi the Welcome Counselor will be upset! Pack a 12 oz. tube of sunscreen, a 6 oz. container of bug repellent and $2 in a Ziploc bag …” Others stray toward the willfully obtuse: “Elliott will LOVE superhero camp because Spencer loved it.  Just sign up. It sells out. He’ll love it. We loved it. We’re doing it again because we loved it. Just sign him up and he’ll love it. You’ll love it.” Then there are those that sum up particular camp experiences in succinct, foreboding fashion: “It’s like a prison.”

Choose incorrectly and your summer will be highlighted by the unyielding wrath of a hot, unhappy child. Some families will sample as many as eight different camps. We’d have went that route, too, if what we really wanted out of our summer was a kamikaze mission featuring an apprehensive 6-year-old super glued to our pant leg every Monday morning. Instead, we sought the path of least resistance and I think we may have found it.

Week one was Camp Grandma. Aquarium, Costco, Pool, Publix (thanks Pat!). Next up was a week at Amy Bryant’s Emory Tennis Camp. Amy is a friend of ours and the head coach of Emory Women’s Tennis. Her son, Kimball, is Elliott’s friend and he attended too so we figured it was a safe bet. Not only was Elliott comfortable, he verbalized enjoyment, which is akin to hearing him speak for the first time. He even came home looking to play some driveway tennis with me. We’ll probably do two weeks of this next year. You should do it, too. Your kid will love it because Elliott loved it. Just sign him up. He’ll love it.

Next we went all in with the camp at The Paideia School for the balance of the summer. What sold us on it is the lead counselors are Paideia teachers and the junior counselors are current students. We’re public school people, but we can glom up some private school awesomeness with camp! I really have no idea what they do every day. Elliott typically responds with a giggly “can’t remember,” but he’s happy at drop off and when we pick him up his hair is matted down with sweat, his broad smile cutting right through the humidity. No parental review can trump that.

While I’m pretty happy with the bridge we built this year, jumping Elliott from school to camp and right back into school breaks my heart just a little. He is having a great summer, albeit way more structured than anything I knew at his age.  We’ve carved out as many impromptu sprinkler runs and moments of ice cream innocence as we can, but he hardly knows what it’s like to have those long, summer days stretched out before him, full of possibility and perfectly devoid of plans.

Tim Sullivan grew up in a large family in the Northeast and now lives with his small family in Oakhurst. He can be reached at tim@sullivanfinerugs.com.