Summer Camp

Surfer Dude is in traditional school calendar because he is a magnet student. I love the year round calendar, but I love his magnet school more. So when the summer comes, I am challenged with finding him fun, unique, and cool camps. He loves sports, so a lot of the camps I choose do tend to be sports related. This summer I wanted to have him do at least 2-3 more academic ones. One huge challenge is that some of the camps are not very working parent friendly. How does a camp cost $245/week and end at 2:30. It boggles my mind.

This summer was the first time he didn’t do NC State Soccer. I am sure they didn’t notice me boycotting the camp, but they changed the stop time from 4:00 to 2:30. There was no way I was paying the money to then have to tweak our schedules all week to get him picked up at 2:30.

But, I found him some really cool camps, he did camp at an ice house, a sports center (that ran him so much I did have to pick him up early one day because his head/stomach hurt, which is code for tired), a drama camp where he put on a cool play called Stone Soup, and this week he is doing an academic camp at NC State. He will be there 11 hours a day, eat lunch and dinner there and switch classes. I am super excited. He is, too. He asked if next year he could be an “overnighter” and sign up for Lego robotics as his class next summer. Although he isn’t too happy that TV will be limited this week so he can get to bed at a decent time.

Here is my camper:

What do you do for summer camp, what has been a success and a failure?

Summer Camp

Yesterday hubby registered C for summer day camp. I have to say I am pretty excited. We had to pre-pay for the entire summer up-front and we wrote the check out for $570. Some would say wow, that is a lot of money, but can I tell you how happy I was when I heard the amount. Let me tell you where I am coming from. That is about 2/3 of what we would have paid for ONE month of day-care. Yes, one month. So that is a huge savings. HUGE!
Now, don't get me wrong, I am going to be a little very sad when I see my little guy off to his first day of summer camp and he runs off to be with the big kids (the campers are ages 5-12, but they split the 5-7 and the 8-12 year olds into two groups). I will also be a little lot worried when he gets on the bus to go to the pool and field trips, but he is growing up and he will have so much fun.
I was talking with a group of moms this past weekend and they asked about C going to Kindergarten this year. I responded that yes he is going and I am so excited. They all looked at me with shocked faces and said, "Really?" with very confused looks. And yes even about Kindergarten I am pretty excited. Excited, nervous, scared, happy, and more. One of my reasons for being excited is day-care costs. It will be nice having him go to school and not going to day-care and spending a small fortune on day-care each month. But, yes I will probably be one of those moms that cries on the first day. A little bit of scared, happy, nostalgia, and excitement all in one. He has already talked about riding the bus to school. Yikes! The one part of Kindergarten that I dread are my relatively care-free nights now. Yes, I have to feed, bathe, and take care of him, but I don't really have to worry about his homework or studying. We read almost every night, but when he is in K, I will feel much more guilty if I skip a night of reading than I do now.