Girl Scout Camp Day #3
Wall... Have.Hit.The.Wall...
Who knew being outside for hours on end with 18 seven year olds and 5 teenagers would be so tiring?
(I'm an idiot. Or an optimist. Or something.)
We had two girl breakdowns today. The first was a complete surprise, she's been such a good little camper. During one of our group activities, another girl(?) said something(?) to her. (I never did quite get the whole story.) And then she refused to participate in the activity because she was in tears about whatever(?) the girl (?) had said. And then she was upset because the activity was over and she didn't participate. Reminded me of my own seven year olds (who are doing just fine except for hanging on the PA's which drives me insane to watch but their PA's keep allowing it).
The second, well we've known it was coming. Puddles Bug Girl. (Not her real camp name.) She has stepped in every single puddle in the entire camp (and that's a lot since we've had three consecutive days of rain). And also? Must save every living creature in her path. Like there were ants in our camp fire pit. We had to physically restrain her from climbing into the fire to save the ants. There's this poor toad that lives near our site that has been "rescued" half a dozen times. She's a bit off in a some way that I can't quite put my finger on but her camp health form didn't mention anything. She doesn't listen, doesn't care about camp activities, just plain doesn't. But when you tell her she's not going to do something she wants to do, she throws a temper tantrum like a 2 year old. Today it was snow cones. She wanted them at 1:30pm and we weren't getting them until 2:30pm. So she stomped her feet, screamed, pouted, and sat with her back to us for the next hour. She also had sliced red peppers in her lunch to eat (and ate them). That really doesn't have anything to do with the tantrum, I just find it odd.
The PA's... I don't want to step on any one's toes about them but it's an interesting situation. I don't mind being with the seven year olds, I'm used to that but I've been told this is where the PA's are suppose to do most of the work. Except they don't. They have the schedule, they have the list of activities. And yet the other leader lady and I feel like we have 5 extra "girls" as we end up having to direct them just as much as we would normally direct the seven year olds. I understand they are learning how to lead (only they really are suppose to know as we don't have any of the PAT's, PA's in Training) and of course my way isn't necessarily the "correct" way. But trying to get the PA's to give directions to their patrol of girls seems like a heck of lot of time wasted when in the end it seems we end up giving the directions again directly to the girls.
They say Wednesday is the toughest day. The newness has worn off and the campers have had two days worth of being worn out and sunburnt (or soaked in the rain). Friday will be fun as there's a bunch of cool closing ceremony type things. Tomorrow? I hope it's not a repeat of today.
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