So I arrived at camp today bursting to ask Chickadee all about her day, and just in time to miss a boy about twice her size decide she was standing too closely to his Foosball (sp?) table. Said boy shot one of the sticks directly into her stomach, and she screamed. I don’t blame her.

The rec room where all of the campers meet at drop-off and pick up is utter mayhem. I don’t know how many counselors where in there, but there were way too many kids, running around like maniacs, and apparently some of them were impaling smaller children for sport. The counselor who brought my sobbing, hysterical child to me was embarrassed and apologetic. Which she wouldn’t have had to be, if the kids had been properly supervised.

So instead of an animated retelling of what should have been (and maybe even was) a very exciting day, I got to listen to weeping all the way home. And very. punctuated. declarations. “He meant to hit me!” “He was a very bad boy.” And my personal favorite, “If I was his mother I would spank him!” Hell hath no fury like a six-year-old traumatized.

No good deed goes unpunished. Why is that such a hard lesson for me to learn?

Now that we are home and somewhat calmed down, things are better… for Chickadee. She is alleviating her collected stress by tormenting her little brother, who is just happy to have her back after a day away. He is gamely playing along with every rotten thing she keeps doing to him. Then a moment of clarity dawns and he says, “Hey! Stop that!” And then it all begins anew five minutes later. Fabulous.

Time for me to go fix “I don’t want that!” for dinner.