Camp’s been a trip

There’s been a real change lately in Katie Kaboom’s comings and goings in that she’s not been around except for maybe once in the past two months. Katie Kaboom is what I call the irrational anger monster that threw 90 minute long screaming and kicking fits every other day.

Whether my 5yo grew out of them or the behavioral therapy helped, I don’t know. I also am not entirely sure whether going to a camp that she enjoys helped, but it sure hasn’t hurt.

Every day there’s a kid who’s ready to go play. Every night there’s a tired and hungry kid who I can get to sleep with a crafted Hulk story that may or may not be about her day and fit right in with the Marvel canon.

There are issues. 5yos are selfish jerks, but whatever. It’s not an inability to calm down after 40+ minutes of screaming and chanting “I want tears coming out of my eyes” and having absolutely no idea what she got angry about in the first place.

As week three of camp ends I look back over the past month and realize it’s been quiet. There have been problems, there’s been some anger, there’ve been some tears, but it’s no longer a sustained assault that we can’t escape.

Seriously, take 90 minutes of your free time every day or two and throw it away listening to Icelandic death metal that you can’t turn off at extremely high volumes and you’ll have some clue as to what the parenting side of this was like.

What I worry about is what happens when she’s not being run ragged with fun activities every day. School starts soon, and even though we’ve decided to up and move her to a new school I’m not sure just growing out of Katie Kaboom is the answer, or if Katie is just away as seriously, if I could I’d join this camp – climbing, running, swimming, activities galore every day.

Man…

We’ll see..