Lovely, but then I saw the next photo.
He looks like he could be unhappy. The next picture sealed the deal.
You see a child rowing a canoe. I see a child who is looking away because he is probably crying and doesn’t want anyone to know.
I took a screen shot of the photo and zoomed in until my eyes bled. I considered calling the camp. Instead, I stress ate a bag of chips. I braced myself for the inevitable call from camp saying my son was inconsolable and I should come get him. The canoe ride was just too much.
Later that day, I checked back in to the camp website to find a photo of my kid at the lake.
Jumping off a pontoon looks fun, but then came the next photo.
Do you see what I’m seeing?
The child is shivering. I began to fear he’d get frostbite.
I considered calling the camp. Instead, I stress watched reality TV and sent 37 friends an email. All of them responded, “Don’t look at the photos!” I listened, until the next day.
*Also, it should be worth noting that in each of the photos my child is wearing clothing proving that he can find his own stuff without asking me. I’m going to remember that the next time he’s home and can’t find his shoes, or his hamper.
The next day the camp posted a lovely group photo that nearly had me in my car driving the 5-hours to camp.
It’s obvious from the photo my kid has had a hard time making friends at camp. There’s more distance between he and the kid standing next to him than there is between any other two kids. I wondered why the camp hadn’t called me to inform me that my son wasn’t well liked at camp. I made a note to call them, right after I finished stress re-folding my yoga pants.
Further proof of my child’s clear unhappiness at camp was this gem.
At face value, this looks like a happy camper. But, clearer heads prevailed. Because you know what is missing from this photo? OTHER PEOPLE! My child is alone in this photo. I couldn’t help but wonder if that meant he’d been alone all the time. I considered calling the camp. Instead, I stress scrolled through every other child’s photos for proof that my kid wasn’t the most miserable one.
Everyone else’s child looked happy. I bit my nails down to sandstone and decided to wait until the next day before calling camp.
The next day, our mail carrier delivered our mail early. On top of the bills and catalogs, was a postcard. I could recognize my child’s serial killer penmanship with my eyes closed. I gasped a sigh of relief, reached for the postcard, and shed tears of joy.
It read, “Mom and Dad, I made a new friend named Barrett. I love jumping off the pontoon into the lake. My counselors are sick! (he drew a peace sign next to the exclamation mark.) Camp is epic. And I can’t wait to come next year.”
I openly wept and put down the phone I was going to use to call camp. My kid was happy. He had survived the freezing (probably 80 degree) lake. He had made it through the 5-hour bus ride (with air conditioning and plush seating.) And he was capable of doing the unthinkable, finding his own stuff.
You don’t know what kind of parent you’ll be until you are one. For every, “I’ll never turn into a stressed crazy sleep away camp mom,” there’s me, using the skills of a forensics agent to analyze my son’s photos. I clearly couldn’t be trusted with intel from the front lines, so I logged out and logged off. When it comes to sleep away camp, no news is good news. Ignorance is bliss. Plus my kid was clearly having a great time. It’s time I did, too.
***
This article originally appeared at BadSandy.com.
