NANA CAMP BEGINS - DAY ONE

Day 1 – Wednesday, July 16

Yes! Nana Camp has begun. Grampy and I have been waiting for months now, and today we officially kicked off our fourth year. What has amazed me the most today is how fast they are growing up. They mature so much in just one year. They all seem so excited to be here and Grampy and I are elated that they want to come. We are very aware of the fact that at some point and time that will not be true. Their lives will be filled with all sorts of things that will pull them further away from us and into the future they are meant to be a part of.

Camden is suppose to be our Senior Camp Counselor this year but his All-Stars Baseball Team changed the dates of the playoffs and he will not be able to come until perhaps even the first of next week. Things will continue to get more difficult to find dates that everyone can agree on. Summer activities mount up quickly and we relish any time now that we have with them.

 

Since we didn’t get started with camp until this afternoon we didn’t have a lot on the agenda for today. We did play a few games like Indoor Basketball, Hot Potato, and Nana Says. We had church tonight and during camp orientation I had a serious talk with them about their behavior in church and also about speaking up when someone speaks to them. They did an excellent job. There was no running, no yelling, and no climbing over pews when services were over. I seem to recall a few years back one time after church was dismissed that several were going up and down the stairs to the pulpit and one or two were climbing over pews playing. When I stopped one there was always another to stop from doing something inappropriate, and by the time I was going after the third one the first two had started back and were finishing where they left off. I distinctly remember seeing someone, with their arms folded, just looking with amusement at everything going on. Oh dear! Did they really do those things or am I just imagining it?

My sweet niece Cortney, let her daughter Sarah Taylor come down to stay with her Mimi, my sister Carolyn, this year and attend camp with the other nine. Sarah Taylor is three and Macy was three when Nana Camp first started. She was shy at first, but soon jumped right into the routine with all the others.

Grampy had devotional time tonight with the kids talking about kindness. It warmed my heart hearing him talk to them. My Grampy is one in a million.

 

I still live and learn each year things I should do, things I shouldn’t do, and things I should just simply know better than to allow. I went to the Dollar Tree and picked up several little prizes earlier in the week that I could give out after some of the games. I noticed that the guys kept trying to get these little bottles of spray string, and I was actually feeling good that I had chosen some of those, since Carter, Noah, and Joshua especially seemed to like them. I just should have known from the beginning that they had a plan in mind. What really boggles my mind is that they came and told me their plan, asked my permission, and I totally was on board with their prank. After all, don’t all camps have boys that want to pull pranks on girls and girls that want to pull pranks on boys? Even if this Nana is right about that I should have thought things through before allowing the boys to run out of their room and begin spraying the girls with the silly string.

Those with wet hair had colored string all throughout every strand of their hair. The sofa, the floor, some of the walls, and every inch of the girls seemed to be coated. The den smelled hideous. Macy started crying profusely. The boys were all gloating that their super prank experience turned out totally as they had planned. Grampy and I were left just looking at the mess. Of course the boys had to clean up, but they laughed uncontrollable the entire time, just totally pleased that they had pulled one over on the girls.

Well, I guess I could have managed to forget this one lapse in judgment if things had ended there, but of course it didn’t. I guess I just should not have told the boys it had not been a good idea because they did not share their next prank with their Nana. They crumbled up crackers to tiny specks and put them all under the girl’s sheets while the girls were occupied in the den. When the girls finally went to bed they had a mess everywhere. I cannot even stand the thoughts of tiny crumbs in my bed.

I guess nobody can be left in doubt that the girls are now planning to get back at the boys “big time.” Their little minds are now plotting something huge, I just know it.

Grampy went in and demanded a truce from the boys. It is now 11 p.m. and they are still in bed laughing about how well their pranks worked. The girls are still all awake as well, planning their strategies and talking about how mean the boys were.

I am wondering if I am going to get much sleep. The incubator, that now holds 27 fertile duck eggs, has noises coming from it. It sounds like there are birds outside trying to get in.

Grampy is already snoring away and I am just too worked up to even try to sleep right now. Tomorrow will be a fun day. There are lots of things to do and nine kids that plan to savor every minute of it.

I am one very blessed Nana.