Chaos Is...

This week has been extremely busy and crazy, but also very fun and exciting! I can't even remember everything we did! -- pictures will be throughout the post, but they aren't always related to the words!

The thing I did the most this week: Cleaning
We had to clean the cabins three times this week, because we had some many groups shuffling out and in. The cleaning part isn't so fun, especially when I find out that I am the SLOWEST vacuumer in the whole world. I found out later in the week the reason why is because I was taking time to move the chairs and fold out table. Everyone else was just going around the furniture in the room. It was so demoralizing to be a floor behind the rest of my cleaning team.  I never felt like being a slow vacuumer would be the straw that broke my self-esteem, but for some reason (--most likely the exhaustion) it was really hard for me to have that realization.  Don't worry though -- I was "right back at it by the end of the night"! (can you name that song?)

Julia and I looking official!

On Wednesday I got my first set of kids. They were so cute. Their voices are so high and squeaky, and they are so small and tiny.  Four-year-olds are also not into organized group activities and very tiring, but all and all their a good group.  I had this set of triplets-- two looked just alike but the third was totally her own person. Whenever they saw me around camp -- I would hear whispers of "There's our teacher. There's our teacher." I would look around till I saw them and then they'd wave and say "Hi teacher!!" It's pretty cute.

This week my co-counselor was sick, so I had a variety of substitute co-counselors. I felt like I should be in charge since they were in my group, but it was kind of difficult because when Holly and I wrote the schedule we just had vague ideas of what'd we'd be doing. -- It turns out I don't remember that much from childhood, but usually the kids are pretty good about coming up with their own things to do. When they turn to me for a game it's usually tag and duck duck goose. So I'm currently scouring the internet for fun four-old games for 10-16 kids. (This week I had SIXTEEN kids, but my next group should only have eleven.)

Here you see what I like to call "Camp Counselor Kelli"
That back-pack is filled with important camp counselor things!

Speaking of sixteen children -- have you ever tried to take more than one child to the pool? How about sixteen of them? How about sixteen of them, and one child who you suspect has autism who is constantly getting lost? I believe that is the closest to chaos I have ever been. Some children are having fun.. some children are too cold.. Some children are splashing... Other children are crying... Also sharing is still a foreign concept to these kids... and that's after I get them all dressed in their swimsuits -- after swimming is even more chaotic because the dressed children want to go outside. . . . It's something I'm going to work on to say the least.

A holiday I celebrated: KELLI'S DAY (June 1, 2011!)

My roommates and I getting ice cream! - not pictured
is Miss Nico -- she was watching a stand-up comedian!

I actually forgot about Kelli's Day until the night before when a friend texted me and asked me if I was excited... Then I got sort of upset that I forgot my OWN HOLIDAY. How does that happen? When I get busy with a real job and may be one day a family will I suddenly forget all the little fun things I do?! Will I be too exhausted to do them?! This is just a small melodramatic rant, but it was a concern at the time. Kelli's Day turned out to be fun despite the cleaning (this was my demoralizing slow vacuuming day). For those of you who don't know it's a Kelli's Day tradition to have spaghetti and meatballs, and a lady-bug cake. The lady-bug cake didn't pan out, but I did get to have my spaghetti and meatballs - and I sang the song to people enough that although no one else sang it all the way through my roommates did have it stuck in their heads! Instead of my lady-bug cake we got creamery ice-cream from the store which was almost as good! I hope someday soon I can make a lady-bug cake to share with all my friends! So it wasn't a perfect Kelli's Day, but it was still a fun one!

Kelli's Day Dinner!

Today I taught CTR 5, but some how I got three-year-olds and four-year-olds and five-year-old -- in a room full of toys -- for an entire hour -- and my teaching partner didn't show up so I had yet another sub. The lesson did not take that long. I don't know how anyone has any sort of organization with 11 children. It was hard, and I've got a bunch of boy cousins in the group (including one explorer who always runs away.) They wouldn't sing in singing time and weren't always paying attention during sharing time so by the time my lesson rolled around with all those tempting toys.... Attention spans were shot plain and simple. I figure there is a learning curve to this job, so I hope I get better and more patient as the summer goes on!

Lessons learned: Preparation is the key to these kids. If you've got energy, a plan a, a plan b, a plan c, and a plan d then you can handle any group of kids.

Quotable quote: during a prayer today little Griffin said: "please help them not to switch places" [during the prayer] -- so cute! Got to love them kids!!!