All Hail, Sleep-Away Camp Approacheth

Conor has two more days of school until summer vacation, and I’ve been spending weeks and weeks preparing. Less thought went into Princess Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles, for Christ’s sake.

I’ve been spending lots of quality time with my calendar. Planning, planning, planning. Coodinating.  Color-coding emails to various helpers. I've cobbled together a mix of camps, outings and respite care aids.  (He's in an 11-month program, so he does have school during July. But still. 7 empty weeks to fill.)

I’m a little anxious, if you must know the truth. 4:30am-staring-at-the-ceiling-nervous.

On the plus side, I’m getting a tremendous amount of worrying out of the way by 6am, leaving me ready to hit the ground running when I get out of the bed. I’m like a Marine with the worrying. I do more before 9am than most people do all day. Booya.




See, we've signed Conor up for his first sleep-away adventure. (Oh wait, no, his first sleep-away adventure was last summer, a four-month stay at the inpatient NeuroBehavioral Unit at Kennedy Krieger Institute.)

Ha! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!

Wait, wait, just give me a minute to catch my breath. I crack myself up.

Anyway, to get back to my point, I'm a little nervous about his second sleep-away adventure. Just a little, tiny, smidgen of a bit nervous. Just a little. Maybe.

Ok, fine, I'm a nervous wreck. So sue me.

It was just two years ago--just two summers back--that Conor behaved so gloriously well that we sent him to an inclusion camp for the second year in a row. That's right, the majority of campers were kids without IEPs singing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and giving each other purple nurples.

Oh, and get this.  He went on the bus. On. The. Bus.  Both ways.  That's right, 24 months ago, we could send our child to a full-inclusion camp on a bus.  On a bus without a 1:1 aid.  (He had a 1:1 at camp, though, that's for sure.)

It was day camp, sure, but he went back-and-forth on the bus and a full day at camp for 20 whole days without a problem.

Now I feel like weeping.

Just a minute, let me get a tissue.

Sorry about that. Summer always puts me on an emotional roller coaster. Anyway, four months (4, as in the number four) after he performed so excellently at the full-inclusion camp, he was admitted for the first time to the neuropsychiatric ward at our local mental health hospital due to the dangerousness of his behavior.

I still have no idea what went wrong. So very bad, so very fast. But you can see why I'm a little nervous, can't you?

9 days until sleep-away camp. To cope,  I have a little mantra going.

Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.
Please don't have a tantrum and get kicked out of sleep-away camp.