Several Days a Week

I see you several days a week

Those days you can hitch a ride

I wish I could just squeeze you

And say everything will be alright

But alas if I attempted such a feat 

For one, it’d make you mad

And also I’d be lying

Because I really don’t know what lies ahead

Life’s unfair, I hope you know

You don’t deserve this fate

I want you to see you can have a future

But what if it’s too late?

The woman who birthed you is not a mom

Of that you should be aware

I don’t know why she chooses him over you

But it’s so horribly unfair

There’s more to life than hospitals and school

One day, I hope you’ll see 

All kinds of opportunities await you

And you can be whatever you want to be

But to reach that point, I’m sorry to say

You must first survive this mess

And the meltdowns and the anger

Are challenging your path to success 

So here’s my prayer for you, my boy

As you travel through this life

I have such high hopes for you

Despite your path of strife

Stay strong, be a friend, and act like a sponge

Take in all we have to teach

We’re not here to fight with you 

We want to see how far you can reach

You love to draw and you’re good at it, too

Did you know people pay for that?

I could see you as an artist, a builder 

You are made for such a craft

For now, though, you’re ten

And your job is to be a kid

You may not think much of me

But every day I hope for you

From the Very First Moment

I'm nearly 26 and have no children. I live alone, just my dog and me, and work a full-time job. You see, I know I'm not ready to have children, because I know the following to be true: From the moment you find out you're pregnant, or that your wife/fiancé/girlfriend/hookup buddy is pregnant, you become second to another life. This is how it must be.

I see kids every day whose parents do not understand this concept.

It means switching out the vodka and beer to water or iced tea when you're out at the bar with friends. Do you not realize that your drinking and drug use affects your growing child? Or do you just not care?

It means deciding if you will raise the child yourself or place him or her for adoption. Do you not realize you're not ready for a child and that he or she would have a better life being raised by adoptive parents? Or do you just not care?

It means finding a stable home in which to raise your child. Do you not realize that moving from place to place affects your child? Or do you just not care?

It means making peace with your child's other parent. Do you not realize that your nasty relationship with your ex affects your child? Or do you just not care?

It means putting your dating life on hold. Do you not realize that leaving your child home alone to go spend the night with your boyfriend affects your child? Or do you just not care?

It means staying out of jail. Do you not realize that being unreachable affects your child? Or do you just not care?

It means finding a way to feed and clothe your child. Do you not realize that using your welfare money for your own entertainment affects your child? Or do you just not care?

It means enrolling your child in school and being involved in his or her education. Do you not realize that your apathy toward education affects your child? Or do you just not care?

It means protecting your child's innocence. Do you not realize that the people and activities you allow around the home will affect your child? Or do you just not care?

It means protecting your child's physical safety. Do you not realize that letting your six-year-old ride in the front seat with no seatbelt affects your child? Or do you just not care?

It means being present and interested in your child's life. Do you not realize that your lack of knowledge of your child's friends, teachers, and activities affects your child? Or do you just not care?

Having a child means your happiness comes second. Your fun comes second. Your comfort comes second. Even your health, safety, and wellbeing come second. As a mother or father, this is your job, your sacred duty. There is no other way.

The Sunday School Hunger Games

image via http://graphics8.nytimes.com

I teach a religious school class of 8 kids in grades 2-4. This past week, I set up a game for them to review some of the Torah characters we have been learning about. I had them split in two teams; boys versus girls was the unanimous choice. Names of Torah characters (Isaac, Joseph, Dinah, Miriam, etc.) were folded up and placed in a little holder. When it was their team's turn, one student came up and picked a name. They then had one minute to use words and/or actions to get their team to guess the name.

During one round, the boy whose turn it was was struggling to describe the character whose name he had picked. All he knew was whether it was a boy or girl. Since his teammate was not doing well, another student on the boys' team yelled out, "Can I volunteer?!" I told him that he couldn't because it was the other student's turn, and we were rotating turns in order. His reply: "But this is the Hunger Games!!!"

So Was I Helpful?

I was in the gym with my group of rowdy and highly competitive day camp boys. My co-counselor and I have many 8-year-olds and also some 7-, 9-, and 10-year-olds. The kids were playing Star Wars, a version of dodgeball that they absolutely love. I, on the other hand, always vote against playing this game because almost every time we play, at least one kid ends up crying. Today was no exception.

I didn't really see what happened but suddenly one of my boys was crying. I have a few boys who will cry if someone so much as pokes them, but this crier wasn't one of them. I saw him storming off to the side of the gym just as my CIT's were stopping the game due to arguing. (Like I said, Star Wars never seems to turn out well.)

The crying boy made it to the side of the gym and angrily punched the door to an adjacent office. Wanting to help him calm down while avoiding getting hit myself, I stood behind him and reached over his shoulders, grabbing his hands. This is my go-to move for upset kids as it both restrains them and feels like a big hug.

"Calm down, buddy," I whispered to him, "if you hit someone, you'll have to go to the office."

He soon ceased to seem dangerous so I let him go and we sat down against the door he had just hit.

"What happened?" I asked, but he was still fuming and did not respond. After I asked a few more times, he responded by informing me that he didn't want to tell me what happened because I would not be able to help.

"Try me!" I countered, knowing I would almost surely be able to help solve this dilemma if I knew the details.

He continued to insist I would not be helpful and that it wouldn't be worth it to "risk it".  This went on for a bit. Then I remembered that I had seen a certain other child push the crier so I asked if that child was involved, already knowing he was. I suppose this led to my gaining his trust as he then told me which other boys were also involved. We walked to the nearby camp office where I sat with the four of them and let each tell his version of what happened. We eventually came to a peaceful solution and left to go join the rest of the group.

As I walked with the boys from the camp office to our group's classroom, I looked over at the original crier, who was still visibly upset and holding back tears.

"So, was I helpful after all?"

"Yes," he admitted and broke into a grin.

The World's Best Babysitter

I watched from the driver's seat of my car as the 8-year-old I was babysitting trotted off toward the public restrooms at the park. I had driven him there for soccer practice when he suddenly informed me that he needed to go to the bathroom. Second guessing my decision to let him go all by himself, I got out of the car and followed him. As I got nearer, I could tell the gate surrounding the restrooms was locked.

"Is it number one or number two?" I yelled to him. He held up one finger. "Just go right there," I said, gesturing toward the many bushes surrounding the locked gate.

"Everyone will think I am weird!" he countered. I assured him nobody would even notice and, after some persuasion, I turned around as he did his business behind one of the bushes. When he was done, he jumped back into my car and I drove him down to his practice at the other end of the park. "Chau!" he called back to me as he ran off to join his teammates.

Right Where I Belong

I sometimes wonder if changing my major to elementary education was the right decision, especially after my summer job working at an overnight camp was much harder than expected. And then I receive notes like this one that assure me I am right where I belong. This came from a parent of one of my religious school students.

Thank you Sarah, we really enjoyed the video. (Child) asks me everyday when I'm going to go out so you can come over and babysit. We haven't gone out yet, but we will call you as soon as we do. I guess since I'm taking so long (Child) is now just asking if you can just come over. I guess he is really excited to have you come babysit. 

Thank you for all you do with the class.

Through the Eyes of a Child

I have a new phone and it sucks. Yes, that is a very "first world problems" thing to say, but it's the truth. I had the same flip phone for over two years, and while I was admittedly sometimes envious of my friends sporting smartphones that put all of the knowledge in the world right in their pockets, I was very happy with that phone. As is to be expected, it broke a few months after its exciting second birthday and I switched to my dad's old phone which happened to be the exact same model. That phone had already seen better days by the time it got to me and it broke after about six months. The next upgrade on our family plan for me is in April and I have been planning for quite awhile to use it to get a smartphone. So, to avoid spending hundreds of dollars, I reactivated an old phone that's been lying around the house.

This phone was really cool. It's one of those "TV phones" from four or five years ago. It was my brother's, then it was mine, and then it was no one's for two and a half years as it lay in my parents' house. Now it's mine again. Text and graphics on the screen are difficult to decipher, especially in the sun, because it is so beat up from use. It turns off randomly, sometimes when I'm in the middle of typing a text message. It's a working phone and for that I am grateful, but it's nothing exciting and I can't wait to get rid of it in April.

Image copyright www.dwholesale.com. Retrieved via Google.

Last night I was out for dinner with friends and happened to run into a family whose children I babysit. They have two boys, ages 11 and 8. I went over to their table to say hello and was quickly bombarded by a request to show their mom my "new" phone. The boys had both seen it the day before when I was driving them home from school. Before I had a chance to find my phone, the younger boy had already discovered it at the other end of the table and snatched it. He and his brother excitedly showed it to their mom, who ooohed and ahhhed supportively. They were bubbling with excitement over this awful old phone. Everyone my age has probably seen a phone that spins open the way this one does, but to them it was brand new and SO cool.

Getting to see and experience life vicariously through the eyes of children is one reason I have chosen to work with children in nearly every job I have ever had and am studying to become a K-8 teacher. I've seen the Grand Canyon, ridden a horse, and built a snowman. Never again will those experiences be new to me.  I've already lost my first tooth and had the training wheels removed from my bike. I will never experience these big moments again. But by spending my life working with children, I get to experience infinite firsts and the excitement that goes along almost as if each was really happening to me all over again. What a perspective.

Oh My Gosh, You're So Grown Up!

I was browsing Facebook the other day when I came across a new album of pictures posted by URJ Camp Newman where I went to camp for three summers as a kid. Newman is probably the most common Jewish camp for youth from my temple to attend, so it's not unusual for me to see people I know in the camp's brochures and online albums. I was looking at session photos when I noticed a familiar face. However, I was surprised to see this child, whom I had worked with as a third grader when I aided in religious school during high school, in a picture for a session I knew was for middle schoolers. How could it be? The last time I saw this kid he was 9 years old!

I thought back and noted that he was in my class when I was a junior in high school. I am now entering my junior year of college. I realized that this boy is going to be in seventh grade this fall. Seventh grade! When he was in the class I helped teach, he was just learning the Hebrew letters and vowels. Now, sometime during seventh grade, he will stand in front of the entire congregation and celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah. Although he has awhile to go before having the rights and responsibilities of an adult in the legal sense, when he turns 13 he will be viewed as an adult in the eyes of the Jewish community. And this is my third grader we're talking about!

When I was younger (and even now, sometimes), people would come up to me and tell me I was so big and so tall and so grown up since the last time they saw me. Half the time I would have no idea who the person talking to me even was because I had been so young the last time we met. The funny thing is, I find myself doing the exact same thing to kids now. It was about eight years ago that I worked in my first class as a religious school aide. It was a kindergarten class, and now the kids are 13 and entering eighth grade! It never occurred to me that this would eventually happen to me, but I guess this is what you get when you work with kids for this many years!

Counting Down the Days

In less than a week, I will hug my parents, brother, and dogs goodbye, get in my car, and drive about 7 hours to Elbert, Colorado, where I will be living for over two months. No, I'm not headed there to take summer classes or to visit family; I'm going to be working at camp.

To some, the thought of spending nine or ten weeks surrounded by young children virtually 24/7 sounds like hell, but personally, I am very excited. I believe everyone has at least one thing they are great at, something that is their true passion in life, and over the past several years, I have realized that mine is working with children. (This is why I recently changed my major to elementary education, something I had been considering for quite awhile.) You see, the task of coaxing twenty 7-year-olds into making a circle doesn't phase me, and I can be asked the same question by the same child ten times in a ten minute period without losing my temper. As my friend said when we were discussing my move to the elementary education major, "Sarah, you are good with kids. Not many people are good with kids, so people who are good with kids should work with kids."

So, while many of my peers will spend their summer answering phones, making copies, and going on daily coffee runs for the office, I'll be running around all day with my cabin of 8-10 girls. Over the course of each day, I'll serve as a surrogate mother, nurse (There are real nurses on site, too!), entertainment director, referee, cheerleader, mentor, team captain, therapist, and tour guide. I'll make sure each camper brushes her teeth and puts on sunscreen in the morning, and I'll be there to mediate when they have an argument with another camper. I'll be the one to clean and put a Band-Aid on a minor cut, and I'll be sitting with them in the nurse's office if they get an injury I am not trained to handle by myself. I'll rock climb and horseback ride right along with them and will teach them lots of new goofy games. I'll wear many hats and will undoubtably be exhausted at the end of each day, but I can't think of a better way to spend a summer than at camp, working with other Jewish young adults and playing with kids all day.

Walmart: A 6-year-old's "home away from home"

Today in my 1st/2nd grade religious school class we were learning about Israel because Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel's Independence Day) is next week. I was going through a packet with my students that introduced the idea that Israel is the homeland for all Jews, a sort of "home away from home". To help explain this concept, the packet included an activity in which the kids were to draw two pictures, one of their actual home and one of a special "home away from home" that they visit often. We discussed places they could draw such as their grandparents' house or a friend's house. I walked around the room as the kids drew their pictures and asked them to tell me what they drew. One child drew the pool at which she swims several times a week. Another child drew her grandparents' house. As I passed by the desk of one of my 6-year-olds, I glanced at his "home away from home" drawing. He had drawn Walmart!

You know you're a camp counselor when...

I got my first summer job at the age of 16 when I was hired as a camp counselor at the day camp I had attended as a camper and then CIT (counselor-in-training) almost every summer for the 7 years prior. This summer will be my fifth working with children and my fourth specifically as a camp counselor. I also volunteered as a religious school aide for five years during middle school and high school and, since August 2010, have been teaching the 1st/2nd grade religious school class. I have come to realize over these past several years that working with kids is absolutely my passion, even my "calling", if you will.

Kids are funny, and working with them makes you a little goofy as well. Following the trend of lists titled "you know you're _____ when…", this is my list for being a camp counselor.

You know you're a camp counselor when…

You can think of more than three name games off the top of your head and could effectively lead one with no prior notice.

You regularly refer to your campers/students as "my kids" and people give you strange looks, sometimes even asking in disbelief if you really do have children of your own.

Your best stories involve something funny a kid said or did.

You can turn any activity into a game on the spot.

You take great pride in watching your campers/students accomplish something that you helped them achieve.

You have no shame in screaming silly songs at the top of your lungs.

During your hour off (overnight camp) or when you get home from work (day camp), you lie down and immediately pass out from exhaustion.

You would rather spend the day corralling 20 nine-year-olds than have to deal with one angry parent.

You know how to play more than two variations of dodgeball.

You realize all the other competitors are under the age of 10, but still, winning a game gives you a boost of self-confidence.

You are a pro at coming up with cheers for your group.

You have been asked the exact same question by more than three different children over the course of an hour.

The only time you go to the amusement park is on field trips with camp.

You have seen a child limp around all day, but when it is time for a fun game, they forget about their "injury" and go play.

Any injury that cannot be fixed with an ice pack, Band-Aid, and/or trip to the water fountain is probably a medical emergency.

image from www.gymnasticsnevada.com

You have told a child that you will not talk to them until they are wearing clothes.

You can often be seen walking around holding a giggling child upside down or on your shoulders.

You can make a crying child start laughing within minutes.

You can usually accurately guess the age of a child you have never seen before.

You have no problem wearing a weird hat, crazy hairstyle, or inside out and backwards clothing for a whole day.

You can be dressed and ready to go after swimming in under five minutes.

You can put sunscreen on twenty kids in a matter of minutes.

You have ever been given a presentation by an insurance company representative or watched a DVD provided by an insurance company outlining ridiculous things not to do with your children that someone has actually done before.

You can carry on a non-child appropriate conversation with another adult in such a way that no kids pick up on what you are actually talking about.

You have ever laid on the floor during group time and conducted a "contest" with your co to see which kid could give the best back massages.

You have ever repeatedly announced a group bathroom break only to have a kid come tell you they need to go to the bathroom the second you return.

You have a plethora of staff shirts that you rarely wear but refuse to donate or throw away.

You have never had to sign up for a CPR/first aid class because you get re-certified every year during staff week.

You have learned that regardless of what you say around middle schoolers, they will find a way to turn it into something dirty.

Summer in December?

By the end of winter break, a college student is supposed to have filled out dozens of applications, had an interview or two, and have a great summer job lined up and ready to go come May. Right? Maybe… So here I am, halfway through break, still not quite sure what I want to do this summer. But never fear, I have a few viable options.

Option A) Work at an overnight summer camp. My only experience as an overnight camp counselor was the summer after I graduated high school. I arrived in North Carolina for my first time ever in the south (excluding the Atlanta airport in 2006) and began a wonderful, challenging, exhausting experience at URJ 6 Points Sports Academy, the nation's first overnight Jewish sports camp. Overall it was a good experience, but upon returning home 7 weeks later, I decided that one summer was enough. I thought that I just couldn't handle another summer of working 15 hour days, 7 days a week, surviving on 6-7 hours of sleep a night and a mere hour per day not surrounded by giggling, whining, adorable, loud children. Because of the challenging environment, I grew up a lot that summer, and I think it prepared me well for college. (Going to college and living on my own is much easier than this job was.)

And yet, a year and a half after completing what was arguably the most difficult job of my life, I am considering once again working at a camp. Why? I LOVE working with children. I think most people are good at many things, but have one area in which they are truly excellent. For me, that is working with children.

If I were to work at a camp again, I think I would like to work closer to home. 6 Points was an amazing chance to see a new part of the country, but I was also quite out of my element. Additionally, the humidity was disgusting. (Yes, I am spoiled with such low humidity in New Mexico.) Currently I am looking at  Rancho del Chaparral near Cuba, New Mexico and JCC Ranch Camp in Colorado. 

Rancho del Chaparral is a camp at which I spent many summers as a kid. It was formerly run by Girl Scouts of Chaparral Council, hence the name. A few years ago, two New Mexico councils merged to form Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails, so now this new council operates Rancho. I first attended various family sessions at Rancho with my family and other families from our troop, and then attended resident camp by myself for the first time when I was 11. It is absolutely an outdoors camp. Girls (and staff) live in platform tents and other structures with no electricity. There is running water but it is not heated, and the bathrooms are latrines (port-a-potties). The biggest pro about this option is that I loved this camp as a little kid so it would be meaningful to go back as a staff member.

Rancho del Chaparral
near Cuba, New Mexico

JCC Ranch Camp is about a 6-hour drive from home and is run by JCC Denver. I have never been, but I have heard some about it and have checked them out online. They seem to be an outdoorsy Jewish camp, with 400 acres of land and many outdoor activities like rock climbing, horseback riding, and overnight out-of-camp trips by bike, horse, and foot. They serve both boys and girls from 2nd grade through high school age. The biggest pro about this option is that is that it is a Jewish camp.

JCC Ranch Camp
Elbert, Colorado

Option B) Get a "real job" in town. The biggest pro to this option would be seeing my home friends who I don't get to see nearly as often now that we are in college. If I work at a camp, I would be gone for 8-10 weeks, a huge chunk of our time off from school. If I did live at home and work, I think I would like to get a job in a field related to what I want to do after college. Right now this is a little bit up in the air, but I think I'd like to go into physical therapy, elementary school PE, personal training, or health promotion. Then again there is the idea of working at a camp as my "real job" after college… we'll see where I end up!