2nd day of Day Camp!

Head back with me to July 22, J's second day at camp. This was a big, BIG day for J. He accomplished what we consider a HUGE goal for overcoming fear. While I was spending the morning and afternoon with friends (and having what were quite possibly the BEST fish tacos with the BEST company EVER! ), J was heading to the ropes course. Now, for the last year I have continually heard "Mom, I want to zip, I want to do the zip line" whether it was at the AC course here or the course at camp. He said last year they ran out of time, while they got him up on the ropes, he never did actually make the zip.

This year, I asked the counselors if they could do their best to get him up there. I even volunteered to help belay if needed, just because I knew he wanted to try so badly.

So...around 5pm, I headed to pick J up. His first news for me? "I zipped mom!". I was so, so, so, so, so excited for him. I told him how proud I was that he did it, and of course reiterated how I am always proud of him, but even more so when he reached a goal he'd set for himself like this. I also told him how proud I was that he didn't chicken out. This is when he turned to me in all seriousness and said "Oh, I tried to, mom, but they wouldn't let me". I giggled to myself. He continued "I cried like a little girl, I was scared, they had to help me go." I asked if they had to push him off of the platform. He said "no". So I asked if they just gave him a little nudge, to that he answered "yes". I assured him that I have had to do that many times with college-age kids. Even though you know you are roped in and secure, dropping off of that platform to zip is really scary, no matter what age you are.

He was glad to hear that and has proudly since then told people that he screamed like a girl but he zipped :) He said he told the counselors when it was over that it was "pretty fun...but mom, it really wasn't, it was just a little fun". Just last week he said he MIGHT do it again sometime, he has to think that one over.

Here is the video of J zipping...From what we could tell, it took atleast 10-15 minutes to finally get him off the platform. (probably more but the sweet counselor who was filming I'm sure was tired of holding the camera up, lol!...this was the 4th video, if that tells ya anything)

Here's the only other picture he had from Thursday...in music...

and see that guy in the red shirt? Yea, he was a 7 year old camper when I worked at camp...do I feel old? Nah...it actually thrills me to see old campers as counselors, even more thrilling when they are J's counselors!

We ended Thursday with more visiting...my friends and their adorable kids, one of which is J's age and was ready with the video games when J was done with camp for the day :)

Oh yeah...the crickets have more than been forgotten by this point :)