Camp Mom: Day 13

[My son's summer-camp this year is a do-it-yourself affair with a couple of friends from his special-ed class hanging out at our house. I'll post a run-down of our activities daily, for others who may be looking for ideas. If you're doing something fun, too, please share it in the comments.]

Day 13. Unlucky 13, maybe. Our best Camp Mom day this wasn't.

We started out at the movies as planned, but my son and I saw only about the final third of Ice Age 2. Most of the time, we were in Snack Bar Line 2: I Can't Believe It's Taking Even Longer This Time. Since this is a free movie showing, I don't begrudge the theatre its snack bar money, especially since they're selling discounted popcorn-and-soda packs. But after getting a look at the length of the lines, I should have told my son he could have breath mints for a snack and stayed seated in the showing room. The lines were long. The lines didn't move. My blood pressure, though? Moved a lot.

The problem seems to be camp groups that come in and order, say, 40 snack packs in the same line where I'm ordering my four. You'd think the theater could work this out in a way that doesn't require people to be on line for 45 minutes, but when I spoke to the manager, he didn't seem too concerned. Guess if you don't pay admission, you can't complain. No more popcorn money from me, bud! I'll enjoy my free movies and give you nary a buck.

My son, bless him, was wonderfully patient, even striking up a nice conversation with a mom in line behind us. We enjoyed the portion of the movie we did see, and he wants to rent it now to see the rest.

When we got home, the kids played computer games for a while, ate lunch, and then we moved into the part of the day that made me nostalgic for the long movie-line wait. The "campers" were disinterested in my speech games and unhappy about doing homework. They struggled to continue a bead project that is starting to make their dislike for papier mâché look mild. And when I told them they had to write five sentences in their journals, but one of them could be "Mrs. Mauro is mean," my son dutifully wrote just that, while one friend wrote that the movie was stupid and the beads were boring. Another asked if they could just come a couple of days a week instead of every day.

Sigh. Are we having fun yet?

I know every camp has bad days. My daughter came home from her camp job down in the dumps because kids were hitting her and pulling her hair. At least in our camp, there were no injuries, except maybe to my ego a little bit, and my self-image as someone too patient to yell at people in movie lines. Tomorrow, we have a field trip, and maybe that will pick up everybody's spirits. We're bringing our own snacks, anyway.

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