Come Monday I will only have Aubrey and Merida during the morning hours!!! How weird is that!?! I am really excited for the kiddos as they are really excited to have fun and see some old friends. At the same time, I'm a wee bit nervous for Jonah and Jed. Not so much for Jonah, though it will be interesting to see how he handles being away from me.
But Jed. Oh boy. I believe that the benefits will be really good for him, but I am nervous for the potential cons to his experience. The way Runner's Camp is set up is that all the kids are separated into groups by age and gender. Jed will be in the seven year old group. He will be 7 the first day of camp, and then he turns 8 the following day! Oh, my! Eight! Anyways, there are few 'issues' I can see that may (hopefully NOT) come up. Jed is a couple of inches shorter than Jonah, who will be turning 6 soon. So Jed will probably be the shortest one there. Obviously someone has to be the shortest in each group, but I think he will be REALLY short. There is nothing wrong with being short. I personally do not care if my kids are tall or short, thin or not so thin :-) But, that is not the case of what other kids might think. Not only is he short, but he is very, very, very thin. He isn't very strong, and definitely not fast, nor does he work hard at physically demanding things. If those things were not enough to bring possible "bullying", then we have his speech issues. At eight, all the other kids will be able to be understood, but Jed will not be. (Knowing that, we have Moira signed up as his group's helper. Each group has a group leader and two group helpers.) Moira will be there to help translate. And then if that doesn't do him in, he has two adult teeth coming in behind his baby teeth. So he has two rows of teeth (he's been to the dentist who believes we should leave his teeth be as he feels that the growth hormones made the adult teeth pop up sooner than his baby teeth were ready to fall out.) I can really, really 'hear' something like "shark mouth" coming out of some kid's mouth.
So you may wonder why we even have him going to this camp. For one, all his siblings have gone and he is very excited to be old enough to go as well. I think that the leaders will be very good at encouraging him to try his best, and I am hoping it will inspire him to continue to give his best at physical activities. I am praying that he is in a group of great kids who are going to look past those issues and see Jed for who he is....a boy just like them, who loves Legos, bugs, computers, riding his bike, etc. Moira is great because she is really good at helping kids to see the good in others. So this will be helpful in case there isn't a not so nice boy in his group. Jed is behind in not only physical skills, but social skills as well. He is progressing like any other child, but he started that progression late, so he is constantly 2 to 3 years behind his age for those skills. But I know we can't always hold him back, so this camp is a way to put him out there, see what he can do, how he handles it, and hopefully through it all HAVE FUN :-) But, being the mom, I'm still nervous.
We pick up their camp stuff this Saturday. They each get a camp shirt, in their age group color, a backpack, and a towel. I will make sure to get a picture of them all on their first day!
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