Confessions of a New Camp Mom

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It’s funny how you don’t really think your life can get upended even MORE when you’re a parent and then, inevitably, something comes along and puts you ass over teakettle. We knew that day was coming later this fall, when dd heads off to Kindergarten; in reality, it started already, since today is her first day at camp.

Naturally, it’s not like we’re packing her off for a few weeks in the Hamptons; she’s heading to a day camp that’s about 5 minutes away from the day care where she was a mainstay (and BGoC) for the last 5 years. Still, it’s a big adjustment. Drop-offs and pickups just got a bit more complicated, since we now have to drop her off before we drop off ds at day care, and then we have to pick her up before we get ds (the hours at the camp, even paying for before and after-care, still run shorter than those of our day care center). She also needs to eat breakfast before she goes to camp, since she won’t be fed when she gets there. As if mornings weren’t difficult enough…

Food is also one of those funny little problems. We’ve been getting off easily for the last half-decade. Ever since she was weaned off the bottle, her breakfast, lunch & snack were taken care of by day care. I consider it baked into the price (no pun intended). Also, given the price we’ve been paying, they had better be feeding the children. This stuff ain’t cheap. But now we have to make sure she’s fed before she goes, make sure she has something to nosh on in the morning and the afternoon, and pack her up with a lunch that’s peanut-free (no worries there; unlike her little brother, she has yet to embrace peanut butter as a food group). You can buy lunch for as little as $4/day, but we wanted to make it possible for her to make and take what she wants.

So, her little (new) soft-sided lunchbox currently has a half-sandwich with tuna salad, a small container packed to the gills with red grapes, and a baggie stuffed with red, yellow and orange peppers (all her choice). Her snacks are a vanilla chip granola bar and a 100 calorie pack of chocolate chip cookies. Because I’m paranoid, I’m also sending her with $10 – enough to purchase a meal if something happens to hers and still have a few bucks left over to raid the snack machine for snacks, too. I felt the hit this week, as our grocery bill went up by several dollars; I’m starting to get a sense of how much we will start to have to pay weekly once she goes off to school in September.

And my biggest worry isn’t even addressed yet: it’s whether or not she’ll be okay. Of course, she WILL be fine. Plenty of kids go to this camp every year, and we have several friends who are sending their kids (dd’s peer group, from prior years at day care). It’s just her introduction into the world of being a little fish in a big pond. And we won’t be there to hold her hand, give her a hug, provide “uppies”, or any of that other stuff. From 7pm – 5-something-pm, she’s very much on her own. I can only hope she makes a friend early on.

DH also noticed that ds was having issues falling asleep last night because he knew a separation was coming, too. For his entire life, he’s had his sister very close by; and, for all but the few months when he was at home right after birth, he’s been able to see her basically whenever he wanted (the teachers at day care were very good about giving them visiting time when they wanted or needed it). This is dress rehearsal time for the Fall, when he won’t see her from early morning until early evening. We’ve had to get used to this, but we’ve got oodles of practice, since she started day care on her 3mo birthday. He has yet to see what this is like, so this should be a challenging week for us all.

Ultimately, I think we’ll all be fine and I think dd will love being at camp. She’ll get tons of outside time (which she didn’t get at day care), she’ll be far more active, and she’ll be challenged in ways that she wasn’t by a structured environment where the structure didn’t vary dramatically year-to-year. We’ll all be fine. Right now, it feels like we’re staring over the edge of a cliff, but I’m sure we’ll all be fine.

Right…?

Decades – looking back

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The other day, I was talking with another parent from our day care about how crazy life used to be before kids. It’s not that life isn’t crazy now, but the form of crazy is so completely different. Before kids, “crazy” meant “I’m really busy running around from thing to thing, traveling, drinking, and generally partying a lot when I’m not at work or asleep”. With kids, “crazy” is more like “I’m never going to have this house vacuumed as much as I want and why are there toys everywhere and where was I supposed to be 15 minutes ago? Oh crap…”

So, with that in mind, a brief look back. Sitting at a mere 39, on the cusp of turning 40 a mere 6 months from now (eek!), where was I when I was…

9: heading into 5th grade. My middle school had a pool, and we had swimming class as our gym class during winter months. One year, my fraternal grandparents (who went to Florida every winter back then) gave me a pair of neon-colored bikinis, one in hot pink and one in fluorescent yellow. I never had the body for a bikini, but back then I was only somewhat chubby, so I wore one to swim class the one day. NOT MY BRIGHTEST MOMENT. I jumped into the pool like the other kids, and the force of impact with the water made the top go up and the bottom go down. I recovered the pieces quickly enough and I don’t think anybody saw enough to make headlines, but that was the LAST TIME those suits came out of the dresser drawer.

19: heading into my junior year of college. I was so excited to be moving up to State College from Altoona. A campus of 40K+ vs a campus of about 1,500. Plus, it should’ve been less backwater. I seem to recall spending much of this summer working during the day and going out with friends in the evening. I’m pretty sure that was the summer I saw Squeeze in Baltimore after winning tickets off WHFS. I went backstage to meet the band and ended up swooning over and crushing pretty hard for the DJ, Pat Ferrise. Squeeze was made of awesome, as always.

29: just moved into the house with my boyfriend. We had season tickets to the Revolution and often traveled at least a couple of times a year to an away game, plus MLS Cup. We’d gone to LA right after we moved in so that we could be at Grauman’s Chinese Theater for opening day of “Episode II”. I was gearing up to get into a Masters program (Finance) and heard by the middle of the summer that I had gotten in. The weekend before Labor Day, my boyfriend and I go on a random jaunt around the Boston area, as we were wont to do in those days. We ended up going in search of the wind turbine out on the tippy tip end of Hull, a narrow strip of land jutting out into the water. It’s less a peninsula and more like a sandbar with housing on top of it. We found the turbine and start walking around on the rocks set around the turbine’s base. I was walking away from him when he mad some comment reminding me about how he’d once said he didn’t want to live with someone again unless they were family. I asked if he means that he wanted his best friend to move in with us. As I turn around, there he is, holding out a blue box with a diamond ring. FTW

39: training for walking marathon #2 and prepping for dd’s first week of camp. She finished day care yesterday, after 5 years, 4 months and 10 days. It’s crazy. And this summer, we’ve already been to DC so dd could walk her first 5K, we’re taking both kids to see The Wiggles in concert (the first concert for our ds!), and I’m heading down to NYC at the beginning of August to spend some QT with my girls at BlogHer12. I don’t get out to many shows these days (although I try to get out to at least a couple of movies every year), and we haven’t been to a soccer game in a donkey’s age. It’s hard to justify going when babysitters are expensive and kickoff is usually coinciding with the kids’ bedtime.

Much like when I was younger, the weekends are still packed. Whether they were packed with homework, clubbing, homework, or kid activities, they just fill up. The weeks have been filled with school, work, work, work…but it’s all good. Working is far preferable to not working. And I like where I am and what I do and who I do it with. All pluses.

I wonder what I’ll write when I’m 49?

Slimming down the cost of getting fitter

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When most people decide they want to get into some sort of exercise routine, their first consideration is often cost. You can start by checking the Sunday newspaper circulars – what’s on sale at Target? Does anybody know of any good workout DVD’s? Does Sears have a decent treadmill that I can put on my credit card?

The good news is that there are even more options than these, some of which are even free.

First things first: start by talking with your primary care physician (PCP) about your specific goals. Your doctor will tell you what they think you’re physically up to doing, and they can often refer you to a nutritionist, physical therapist, or other specialist, if such attention is needed. If your PCP is part of a “patient-centered medical home” (sometimes called a “PCMH”), your health insurance plan may cover visits to your doctor with a reduced (or $0!) co-pay. The key thing here is that you never want to start a new exercise plan without checking in with your doc FIRST.

Second: look at no-cost options. Make sure you actually LIKE the exercise/plan you’re trying out before you invest cash in it. Consider walking or running in your neighborhood before you buy a treadmill or get a gym membership. Cable TV subscribers can often benefit from “On Demand” services offered through cable providers like Cox, Comcast and Time Warner that allow you to view unlimited quantities of exercise videos as part of your cable subscription. Try before you buy those DVD’s!

Third: Use the discounts that you get through sources OTHER than the paper. Many health insurance plans, especially the national biggies (i.e., Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Aetna and Cigna) offer “wellness” programs that include discounts on everything from gym memberships to equipment to apparel. Some insurers also offer rewards for completing wellness activities, like completing online health assessments or going for an annual physical exam. Go to your insurer’s web site or call the customer service number on the back of your insurance card to get the skinny on these discounts.

Fourth: Look at work! Many workplaces have started to offer wellness programs and rewards, sometimes in addition to those offered through the insurance plan. Rewards can be anything from cash reimbursement for specific activities and memberships to discounts on gym memberships, race registrations, and more. Check with the Human Resources (HR) department, as applicable, for more info on what may be available for you.

I’ve gotten some great deals for myself in the last 12 months, like personal training sessions at my gym paid for by my company, and 15% off my awesome sneakers for the marathon (Brooks Addiction) at the local running store, thanks to our health insurer. I know about these discounts mostly because I read the stuff that’s posted on the HR section of my company’s intranet, and I glance at our health insurer’s newsletter before I toss it in the recycle bin. I also occasionally log in and check our health insurer’s web site for new discounts, since deals are often updated there and not put in the printed material. In other words, there are LOADS of things out there to help reduce the cost of getting fitter, and they’re not always hidden in the most obvious places. Happy hunting! (and if you know of other good, semi-hidden/non-obvious sources, feel free to post them in the comments so others can benefit from your wisdom!)