Summer Camp, Day 2

On the second day of camp, Bastian would have none of it. I got him ready with Aleks and we went to drop Aleks off together and I convinced him to come in, but once we got to his classroom, he was not interested in staying without me. So I sat with him awhile and then I assisted while he put a puzzle together. When it came time for the class to do their thing, however, he really still just didn't want me to leave.

Bastian is not much of a joiner. He needs to feel comfortable. He needs a very familiar grown-up or older child (read: Aleks) or at the very least, a familiar context, before he's excited and able to do all the fun things. This is fine with me. It's just who he is. I was told that he should be able to be alone without me. I informed the speaker that he is perfectly capable of such given certain circumstances that make him comfortable and anyway, he's five, so what-the-eff-ever.

In the end, I stayed for the whole two-and-a-half hours instead of going home and baking apple cake for City Fresh customers. We did a stupid craft, listened to a stupid story, and were chastised for not sitting still while children behind the back of the "teacher" got away with hitting one another freely.

Then it was time for a walk, which was very good because a room full of four and five-year-olds need to MOVE. Seriously. We stopped by the butterfly garden, checking the milkweed for bites out of it and searching for caterpillars. There were none.

Then we moved on through the forest and I took photos, as usual, to occupy myself. Bastian hung very close to me, initially. I spied little things, like burnt bits of paper laying near the fire pit... Spider webs in the sun...
leaves reflecting on the water...
Minnows in the stream...
And finally, there were monarchs, not eating milkweed.
And Bastian and I were together...

I inherited his name-tag for the remainder of the walk while the "teacher" repeatedly asked him to stop running ahead. By the end of the day, I didn't like her. She wasn't awful, and I'm sure other parents thought the camp was fine, and I'm sure that really, it was just fine, but my standards must just be really high because I just don't do busy work with my kids and see no use for it in a summer camp. Sigh.
Afterward, we took Bastian to get his hair cut.