My answer was, "Dunno. I have no clue, really, but sounds like fun for the little dude".
I can now answer that more "gooder".
First off, it is mostly a day where adoptee's get to spend time with each other and they all know that every single kid there is adopted. It probably didn't mean as much to Caleb as it did the older kids, but he had a great time regardless of the understanding.
Second, it was only the "Day Camp" version of adoption camp to get a feel for what the real, 5-day camp is like. That's where the kids really get into heavier conversations about their lives and as the director told me, there are things that the kids will confide in each other, that they would never tell parents, siblings or more broadly speaking, anyone who was NOT adopted.
I get that. It's a bond that only the adopted understand. Kinda cool that camp provides them this outlet that might otherwise be hard to come by.
Caleb told us he wants to do the 5-day camp next summer, so I'm thinking he liked it!!
The day went like this:
10am - Check-in
10:30am - get to know'ya session/introductions/tour of camp
11:00am - kids go play with the counselors and older camp kids/parents get attend a question & answer session with a panel of college aged adoptee's (this was cool, informative & eye opening!!)
12:00pm - Lunch
1:00pm - group session with kids/fun coloring with "what's in your heart" puzzles
2:00pm - swimming
3:00pm - round table discussion with parents and camp director
4:00pm - say our goodbyes
Enough set-up. On to a few photos of the day.
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| This was taken at the Chuckwagon restaurant in Adair Iowa on our way to Steve & Kathy's (my brother and his wife) house, where we will sleep for the night. (thanks again!!) We were the only two in the place for quite a while and the waitress treated Calebber quite nicely! He's cute, in case you haven't noticed... |
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| This is Camp morning. I didn't know exactly how long it would take us with rush hour traffic, so we left my bro's house about 2 hours before we needed to be at camp. Of course I knew that we would need to gas up the truck and get some coffee along the way, but it gave us plenty of time so we were never rushed and time to recover from a wrong turn or three. So we got to camp about 1/2 hour before we could check in. I took the lad on a walk around the place and up to see the horses that were out in a pen when we drove by. Well, that fine gentleman in the pic saw us looking around for the horses and invited us into the stable. He was beyond kind and went out of his way show us around and introduce us to all of the horses. Then, he showed us the rabbits, opened the cage of the lop-eared varmint for us to pet and if that weren't enough, he asked Caleb if he would like to help feed the calf. Calebber jumped at the chance and is still excited about it and still talks about how strong the calf was. You can see spilled milk on the ground above. That's because the calf sucked the nipple completely off of the bottle! Note: this was not part of camp. Caleb was the only kid that got to do this since we got there early. |
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| This is Main St. of the camp. The building in the background middle is the stable building where the calf feeding went on. The buildings on the left is the Theodore Hotel where the campers sleep and the buildings on the right are the gymnasium/restrooms. |
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| This is the cafeteria building and that's a happy little, well-fed Chinaman!! |
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| This is taken from nearly the same spot as the cafeteria photo above. That's the pond (very muddy from recent rains) and the building sort of upper left is the swimming pool. |
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| This is again from that same perspective looking down towards Main St. |
So how's a little dude process a day like this?
Sort of like this:
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