Making Summer Memories

I know, I know... we're still really in the midst of spring. But yesterday we had a taste of summer weather (it's raining again today) and played at the park with friends. Also I've been planning out ESK's summer with fun camps and activities. So far: gymnastics camp and princess dance camp (!!!). I know she'll love both of them and I'm excited for her.

However, I am worried about ESK not having a good time. I have vague memories of summer camps from my own childhood that were not that much fun. Girl Scout camp, in the hot, sticky Pennsylvania heat, with the outhouses and omnipresent gnats swarming about... yuck. Not fun. Our local day camp at a nearby elementary school also evokes humid feelings of discomfort and not much else.

Besides the terrible mid-Atlantic summer humidity however, camp was not a fun experience mostly because I was a really shy girl. Growing up, I was painfully self-aware and conscious of how different I was from the general population. It was hard for me to make friends at regular school, so it was even harder for me to adjust socially to these camps that lasted for a few weeks at most and where I didn't know a soul.

I know ESK is totally different from the girl I was growing up -- loquacious, outgoing, and at times totally not self-aware. So, of course I am projecting my own insecurities on my child. But the point is, that I do want her to have fun at these camps and make some great memories of summer.

Funny thing is that for all the time and forethought I am pouring into this, ESK probably won't remember 90% of it! I need to relax and stop helicoptering.