Things I have learned staffing a resident Girl Scout Camp

1. I spend a lot of time in bathrooms frequented by 5 year old boys. They have NOTHING on 12-13 year old girls when it comes to shear grossness in this arena. Here are the things I never thought I would have to say, but did.
*DO NOT pick your nose and wipe the boogers on the bathroom stall.
*Pooping in the shower stall is UNACCEPTABLE.
*WHY in GOD'S NAME would you throw a used sanitary product on the bathroom floor?
*I don't care HOW mad you are at someone, PEEING on their sleeping bag is NOT the answer.

2. Telenovelas have NOTHING on 12-15 year old girls when it comes to drama.

3. Individually, these girls are lovely, wonderful human beings and I would invite them into my house any day. As a pack, these girls are beyond tiring both emotionally and physically.

4. There are NO sick days at camp. Oh, you have a fever, are losing your voice and can't really breathe through your nose? Suck it up buttercup. You need to get 16 girls moving even though they don't want to.

5. I am totally willing to go up and down a hill that is the equivalent of 10 flights of stairs at 6 AM to be able to drink a good cup of coffee without anyone under 18 talking to me, and take a shower.

6. Kids will eat like starving orphans if you put them out in the woods and make them hike up and down hills, kayak and run on the beach. In fact, they will eat just about anything not nailed down by the end of the week, and may fight to the death over who gets the last slice of garlic bread.

7. You will return from camp craving fresh fruits and vegetables, even though the food is REALLY good. The only vegetables at camp are mush or Caesar salad drowning in dressing.

8. After nearly 30 days of camping and either shopping in tiny stores in middle of nowhere Montana or having the camp kitchen do the kitchen, stopping at Safeway is a little overwhelming.

9. I need to remember that chocolate is a MUST the night I return from a trip, and I MUST figure this out before the kid goes to sleep.

10. If you make friends with the cooks, they will send you home with a care package of the leftovers so you only have to make side dishes for several days after you leave camp. (And they will set aside the GOOD leftovers before offering the rest to the regular staff.)

11. 150 Girls in a dining hall make an ungodly racket.

12. If you encourage girls to bang on the tables, they will do so. They will do it hard enough to spill the drinks on the table.

13. Given a group of adults, I will always be able to find the ones with the dirty minds and childish senses of humor. When you are attempting to get everyone to sit silently and reflect on their wonderful camp experience, we will be in the back, nudging each other with tears streaming down our faces as our shoulders shake with the effort to hold back the laughter because the 12 year old next to us farted, loudly.

14. Whatever the thing that you are least proud of, that is what the girls will tell their parents when they are picked up. For example, if you let a few curses fly when you think you are talking to another counselor alone but turn to find two campers standing there this will happen; "Hey mom, this is my counselor. She is SO COOL!!! Because she swears."

Decisions, Decisions

One would think that if you are prone to over thinking EVERY decision like I am that you would be able to come to a few concrete opinions on whether the decisions made at tipping points in your life were good or bad. Spending time devoting yourself to whether or not that third glass of wine was a good idea, or if you should have used a different filter on a Facebook post should prime your brain to help you decide if the course of action you took on a big decision was the right thing to do, or just unnecessarily mucked things up. But you would be wrong......at least in my case.

In fact, since I can't seem to come to a decision on most of my decisions, every time a new one comes along, I must lie awake and try to decide for all the old debates that are long past being changed. Was it better to decide to go to college half-assedly or would it have been better to take a break? Did I pick the right guy to marry? Did I make the right decision to have a kid when my husband had cancer? Return to work or stay at home? Private or Public Preschool? Elementary School? Every decision has led to good and bad things. There are only two things I can point at that I would change if I had the chance. 1. Getting the proper amount of life insurance on Carl and I . 2. When I got hormonally wacked out on the Depo shot in my early twenties, I wish someone had stopped me from sending letters filled with THE CRAZY to an ex boyfriend. (Seriously, I can't tell you how many times I have wished to take those letters back.)

So, as I look at yet another sleepless night filled with assessing my decision making abilities both past and present, I have to say, I guess it is a good thing that there is very little in my life that I fully regret. There may be a pang here and there, but mostly.......I trust myself. (Now if only my brain would get the message so I could sleep.)

An Honest Assessment of Myself

"You are brave." I seem to get that a lot. And it has come up a couple of times this week. And usually it makes me either uncomfortable or pissed off. People say I am brave because I got pregnant knowing the odds were good I was going to be a single mom. I am brave because I managed to survive Carl's death. I am brave because I am willing to fly cross country alone with a one year old. I am brave because I will take my child on a long camping car trip. Heck, I am brave to camp alone as a woman. I am brave to take on the responsibility of herding 13 girls through Girl Scouts and camping. I am brave because I say what I think even if it leads to me being embarrassed.

My first reaction to most of these comments is a knee jerk denial. I am not brave. Bravery is all about facing danger, and the only thing on the line in most of my adventures is my self esteem and sanity. But then I was thinking about the real meaning of bravery, and if bravery is the showing of courage, and courage includes persevering through fear and difficulty, then I guess I am brave. It is weird to think of myself that way, since bravery (or even courage) are not generally on my list of adjectives I would use to describe myself. And most of the time I am putting on a brave face, my brain is screaming at me to flee the country (or at least the state).

But then I wonder if maybe instead of brave, I am foolhardy. Am I able to keep going in the face of fear and difficulty (brave) or am I needlessly bold (foolhardy)? Maybe I am a little of both. I can add them to the list of things I know myself to be. Stubborn, confident, intelligent, generous, a mediocre housekeeper, a great cook, a fairly decent mother, a little lazy when left to my own devices, and self reliant.