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Noelle is happy.

I am happy.

YMCA summer camp is happy.

Her old/new school is happy.

Nicky is happy that moving Noelle did not mean moving him and that he can stay at camp, which he *loves*. (BTW — YMCA camp was clearly happy with that decision, as well ).

And Carlo, well, Carlo is always happy.

The staff at Noelle’s school greeted her with open arms and big hugs all around as they told her how happy they were she was going to spend the summer with them. She smiled and grinned and relaxed.

Commentary — Kathy called me on my black/white point-of-view. She is right and it is not so much that Noelle failed, or camp failed, or I failed — rather Noelle may simply not be well suited for this type of day camp which transitions in bulk between activities on such a regimented basis. Its big and loud and there is a lot of stimulus. Noelle has always needed some amount of down time during the day, and there is really no room for that at the camp with its scheduled activities and tiny rest period.

OK, back to the original post.

Well, Noelle is not suited for this particular camp.

Three days and 4 major melt downs later she is sitting in my office eating lunch and I have arranged with her preschool for her to attend their “senior camp” with a number of her school friends. The transitions at YMCA camp seem to just be too much for her when combined with all the physical activity and tiny naps and the camp is not really well equipped to deal with a child as spirited (defiant, huge — insert adjective here) as Noelle. Now, I just have to negotiate with the camp to, hopefully, get most of my non-refundable deposit back.

On the plus side, Nicky *loves* the camp. He is really excited and enjoying it tremendously and cannot wait for the big field trip to the boardwalk on Friday. Carlo is also doing well in his big boy, pre-school I class.

Me, well, I’m glad to have resolved the situation with Noelle and camp, so that I no longer have to receive those twice daily, anxiety causing calls from camp about Noelle’s behavior.

She is now well on her way to sleep on the floor — running around and then throwing big fits is pretty exhausting.

Went great! The big kids had no problems and were down right excited. I guess I’ve been talking it up enough. I spoke with Nicky’s counselor about his back, mostly to warn her because the first time the words “I can’t do that, I have a rod in my back” pop out of his mouth it can be startling. It turns out that one of the counselors at the camp also has hardware in her back.

Carlo was a little moany and groany and clingy at drop-off, but that’s because he knew Noelle and Nicky were going off to do something else. He recovered enough to wave good-bye to us from the window — even blew kisses.

We left early to allow for extra time and I even blocked off the first hour of work for no meetings in case I needed extra, extra time. Needless to say, I was in nice and early this morning.

–

Hah! Literally as I was typing this Nicky called from camp. Noelle was doubled over at camp. Five counselors hovered around her trying to get her to tell them what was wrong and respond and she wouldn’t. Finally one of the Assistant Directors seemed to get a response, which was “Mommy”. They called Nicky in to help. She seemed to confess to the Director that she was itchy. She wouldn’t talk to me (at any rate, she wouldn’t get up and walk to the phone). I chatted with the Director about my 4 going on 14 year old and he sent Nicky off to go find her blankie in her backpack. It might be a long day for them. Hopefully some more formal activities will start up and she’ll get distracted.

I sat down to enjoy the last couple of episodes of Lost at 9:15 tonight (an early night for me to be sitting down). Only I could hear mumbling upstairs, so after a bit I went upstairs to check it out. Turns out that this time its Noelle talking and keeping Carlo awake (its usually the reverse). I can’t sleep. Lay down and put your head down. I want dirty blankie. We can’t find it right now, its nigh-night time, go to sleep. I’m thirsty. Waaaa. Noelle, you have to stop screaming or I’m going to move Carlo to my room. She quieted down for a minute. Then I came downstairs and she started up again. So, I went back upstairs and moved Carlo to my bed and left her screaming. Which she continued to do for half an hour or more without much of a break. I finally went upstairs to try again and I talked her into laying down and zoop, out she went — no water, no dirty blankie, and through screams of I can’t, I won’t, I’ll scream for hours — I did fish out lion blankie to supplement clean blankie, the two together got her laying down. Oh my goodness. I’d blame it on anxiety about the Kindergarten open house tomorrow, except she did something similar at the pool at Kathy’s this weekend.

So, then I settle into the last Lost episode of the season … very excited that I was going to finish it all off. Only, I was very, ahem, lost. Sigh. Turns out that the final “show” came in 3 parts, not 2. I must have deleted number 2 while cleaning up my DVR recently and the jump from part 1 to part 3 is really too big to make.

Bummer.

I’ll just watch it off abc.com, but its now too late to start a new Lost this evening.

Maybe tomorrow.

Wendy’s will donate $.50 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (”finding forever families for children in foster care) for every Frosty product sold this weekend:

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption presents Rockin’ Frosty