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Family Summer

Mid-Summer Sunday Report

Two weeks ago, Hubby and I attended Visitor’s Day at our son’s camp. Eager to see us, Tech waved his long arm at us as we approached his village. After he introduced us to his counselors, showed us his bed, and shoved the treats we’d brought into his trunk for safekeeping, we went for a walk. As we strolled, Tech explained that a bunch of campers had been temporarily quarantined because they all had bumpy rashes on their torsos.

Tech stopped in the middle of the road and pulled up his shirt. “Check it out,” he said, pointing to his midriff.

Hubby inspected the boy’s belly.

“Looks like heat rash,” I said dismissively.

“But it could be something,” Hubby said.

“The Health Department let us go,” Tech said.

“The Health Department was here?” Hubby and I said in stereo.

Rolling his shirt back down, our son resumed walking down the road. “They said it was nothing. The nurse told us we could go back to our bunks.”

Despite the fact that Tech seemed fine, I found myself arranging for him to have a throat culture.

As you can imagine, the Health Department was right.

All’s well that ends well, yes?

At noon, the boy came home for intersession: a few days where folks go home and drink and sleep and do laundry before returning to camp for the remaining three weeks. It’s a LoveFest over here.

And by that I mean, the boy is loving his technology.

Once in a while, I seem to manage to get a smooch in.

Screen Shot 2013-07-28 at 5.37.56 PM
Spotted in natural habitat.

How’s your summer going? And to those of you with kids who went to camp, what’s the word? Any weird rashes?

tweet me @rasjacobson

PS: Check out what my kid has been doing!

http://www.cslsummerblog.com/2013/07/end-of-july-2013-video.html

40 thoughts on “Mid-Summer Sunday Report

  1. Glad you get a couple days of luvin. He will come up for air but I predict those moments will be few. I also bet he’ll become attached to his phone, texting the people he just spent the month with and will see again in four days. Remind him, like I do every summer to the Sr. Campers, to live in the moment. That’s one of the best parts about overnight camp- you must live in the moment since there’s no technology allowed. Enjoy having him home (although I don’t need to tell you that.).

    1. Thanks, Boots. He is definitely in the moment. Tonight it’s been one long moment at the computer. He’s sooooo tired right now, he’s heading up for a shower and I’m guessing he’s going to crash hard. I can;t believe next year he’ll be a Senior Camper. Do you want to go back and be his Unit Head? 😉

      1. I would love to be his unit head but I doubt he’d want me. The best part is having someone you can relate to and I’m not sure he would think he could relate to me. I know I could relate to him, or at least I think I could. 😉

    1. Based on this post, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have wanted to! He’s home and he can barely talk. His throat is sore from screaming his head off and he’s positively filthy.

      And yet.

      I can’t wait to smooch him up. When he’s tired he doesn’t fight the MamaLove.

  2. My son just had a bit of heat rash recently after hanging out at a friends pool. At first I was a little concerned too…. because…. now don’t freak out… when my daughter was younger she came back from a friends house that had a hot tub. She and her friend had spent a good chunk of time in the tub and my daughter developed this massive rash all over her body, but especially where her suit was. Looked like chicken pox. So… we go to the doctor… the diagnosis, hot tub folliculitis! I know, gross! Google it, it’s a real thing and apparently more common then any of us could ever imagine. Just a bacterial infection, quickly treated with some antibiotics. BUT… I’ll never go in another hot tub without wondering what’s swimming around with me. Glad Tech’s was just heat rash!! Glad he gets to come home for a bit!

    1. Soooo gross. This thing wasn’t heat rash but it wasn’t bacterial either. (Apparently it was viral.) Whatever it was, it resolved itself — but not until after this mama made sure to get a strep test. Overkill? Maybe, but I’d rather err on the side of caution. And, yes, hot tubs are nasty. Thanks for the public service announcement. You should copy your comment and put it on your blog. It’s funny stuff — you know, now that the rash is gone.

      1. No, not overkill. LOL, that reminds me of another parenting story… one of the first times my daughter had strep, we put off going to the doctor, figuring it would resolve itself. It didn’t and eventually she got the rash on her body. So we go to the doctor and they tell us she has strep and Scarlet Fever. “WHAT?!?! Scarlet Fever, I thought we got rid of that in the middle ages!!” Anyway, I promise we are good parents and she has turned out to be a fabulous, well adjusted kid. Just a few trials and errors early on! 🙂

    1. Did you sit through to hear the kids talk about the camp? There was a long pause. And some of those littluns do stay for full summers, but a lot head home after 2 or 4 weeks. They love it. You should have seen them crying at the busses today. They. Don’t. Want. To. Leave. Each. Other. It’s. beautiful thing.

  3. How adorable is he??? Even if all we can see is the back of him. 🙂 That’s exactly what mine would be doing. Inhaling and maximizing their tech time before heading back to remoteness. When my daughter was little and attended a girl’s scout camp, I got the call no parent wants to get. Your child has lice, come pick her up. Noooo!!!! I guess, I’ll take a rash over that. Glad you got to see your boy.

    1. Rash over head lice any day. And now my head is itching. Oy! He’s loving everyone’s letters! Since we returned from Florida, he got 7 more that need to be read and forwarded! Can you imagine?! Kinda glad the last date to enter is fast approaching! Who knew so many people would be into my reindeer games?!

  4. Renee, can you believe how fast the summer has gone? We’re approaching August already. Iy, yi, yi. Rash? How fun. Sounds itchy to me. But keep giving that boy smooches girl. He’ll be glad to go back to camp. lol. 🙂

    1. The boy is home from camp for a few days right now. He has been on his technology, non-stop. He’ll be psyched to go back to camp, yes… but I miss him so much, it’s hard not to scream at him to come over and hive me some mama love. I’m guessing that wouldn’t go over real big. 😉

    1. Hi 1point. I guess that’s it — maybe. I wouldn’t have thought twice about this dumb rash if he’d gotten it here. I guess it’s the being away that makes me a little loopy. Also, I know I got infectious hepatitis at this same camp many decades ago after eating food that was prepared by a sick kitchen worker. {So there’s that.} 😉

  5. 19-yr old daughter working all summer while taking college algebra courses to help her weakness in mathematics (like her father!), and 12-yr old son & his pony-league baseball team made it into World Series regionals in Louisiana, placing 3rd, but unable to qualify for Washington, PA. 🙁

    Now school starts in 2 weeks; summer gone, way too short!

    1. I kind of wish they STAYED there. The boy is home now for these few days — but this is when they get exposed to all kinds of new viruses that other people on the outside! If they stayed in camp (in their closed environment), they would be fine.

      But I’d miss the LoveFest.

  6. Too funny. Both my kids came home last Monday (one camper and one working). Had both at pediatrician on Tues. I tried to go Monday straight from the bus but alas i got the answering service when i called :-(. The diagnosis: camp cough which apparently settles in after week 3. Son also had mysterious rash on his bottom which they think also caused a swollen groin area lymph node. I will say the camp doc did call me Mon am before they left camp to give me a heads up on the rash and swollen lymph node. Nothing like CYA.
    Of course all this is better than the 5am phone call from elder son calling from ER in foreign country asking “are all my shots up to date?” That question certainly wakes you up! Brace yourself, it’s just the beginning.

    1. We are full court press with the “camp cough.” It’s because of all the screaming that that do. Probably. Booty rash and swollen groin! Oh my! You are freaking me out — but, then again, misery loves company, right? As long as it’s nothing serious.

  7. No rashes on this end but we have had strep run rampant in our family this summer. I’ve asked if I can get a bulk discount at the pediatrician’s office since we’ve been there so often. Happy to hear Tech is enjoying camp and you get to love him up for a few days! Enjoy!

  8. I like that he let you post the back of his head. And hello the rash?! I would’ve arranged a throat culture as well. Definitely. Enjoy the rest of the summer, Tech!

  9. Wow! Judging by that video no wonder he has a sore throat from screaming his head off and that he is very tired. haha, it looks like fun!

    1. Yes! If you saw that video you heard the screaming! They are all exhausted from doing tons of yelling and tons of activities!

      And they loooooove it.

      And they never complain.

      That’s why I had to be sure he didn’t have anything.

      Because I KNOW he wouldn’t ever want to have his fun cut short by being sent home on account of illness!

  10. Renee, I heard from my daughter (staff Tusc) about the camp wide mystery rash. Shane didn’t even bother to show me, but he did take me down the C-trail and instruct me when to hold on the rope so I wouldn’t wipe out on my butt. And he told me that he didn’t use his sun tan lotion at all (peeling nose) or hadn’t found his bodywash/body soap till I arrived on Visitors day and it was in the side pocket of his trunk still. I wondered if he had used soap at all in the first two weeks. But you will truly love this, Hillary came home from senior yr college with Ring worm on her face no less, and three days ago I got a photo of the side of her neck and face, turns out a serious case of poison ivy. I thought the kids were supposed to get the “camp diseases” not the staff! As Shane says, “Hillary’s stuff looks disgusting”. She’s still pretty to me though 🙂

    1. The first I heard of it was when I got to camp on Visitor’s Day. The boy pulled up his shirt and showed us. But yes, I certainly have heard that some bunks aren’t particularly excellent about making sure their campers are using soap or sun lotion. Trust me, they get better at this stuff as they get older. Tech carries around a backpack now with all his stuff: water bottle, sunscreen — and, of course, Duck Tape because you never know.

      The stuff about Hilary? Ringworm? Aaaaaaarrrrrgh! I hope her bad case of P.I. is clearing up. I understand that can be miserable.

  11. I’m so glad you got a few days to enjoy the back of Tech’s head! I loved exploring England with my girls, although our ideas of the important things to do and see were wildly divergent. I’m just back and trying to get the mountain on my desk tamed, then off for a family wedding this weekend.

    Where is the summer going?

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