Just Another Day at Ramapo

Time off is very limited, so updating my blog gets forgotten a lot. My apologies. Here are more stories from the last two weeks...

First I need to give a shout out to my  coworkers. They are AMAZING! I definitely would not be able to keep my sanity without them. I am constantly impressed and inspired by conversations I hear between them and the kids and also the solid encouragement everyone gives each other. These people are the best!

Ingenuity
One of the more popular games we play with out kids is called steal the chicken. One person stands in a hula hoop with a rubber chicken on the ground that they are protecting. The other kids are trying to steal the chicken without getting tagged. If they get tagged they run back and get a high five then continue trying to steal the chicken, but if they can successfully steal the chicken then they are in the middle guarding the chicken. One of my kids was playing with a rope one day while we were playing this game and was choosing to sit out, which wasn't like him. After a while he decided to join the game and starting trying to steal the chicken. He had come up with a different strategy, however, and had created a make-shift lasso out of his rope and was trying to lasso the chicken and drag it out. GENIUS! If only he knew how to make a lasso....his rope circle wasn't quite successful, but it was a great idea. Smart kid.

Say what?!
Some of our campers are a little on the strange side. One in particular, Andrea, is absolutely nuts. I cannot stop laughing when I am around him because he says and does the most ridiculous things! Yet at the same time I prefer to keep my distance because he isn't very fond of the world. He absolutely hates a lot of noise, especially crying. One night, as we were doing our minute of silence before entering the bunk, we heard a cry off in the distance and out of no where Andrea shouts (in a nasal Japanese accented voice) "KILL THEM!" What?? It was so random that I couldn't stop laughing. At another occasion he was talking about starting a genocide at the camp. He has also asked about multiple peoples allergies so that he can poison them...this kids has some issues. (He has not acted on those death plots, so don't worry). When he isn't talking about killing everyone, he is singing "Baby" by Justin Bieber. This one is still a mystery to me.

Don't Mess
So one day Andrea (the kids I was just talking about) decided he was upset and then he decided he wanted to tear apart one of the balls we were playing with. He got to sit on a crate and be silent for a little to think about what he did. Well after a little bit he decided he didn't want to stay on the crate anymore; he decided, instead, to run at me and throw his elbow into my back. One major factor that he didn't think through (besides everything else that is logical) before attacking me was the fact that all the other mountain boys were playing a game with me and don't take lightly to people messing with me. They all dropped what they were doing immediately and starting chasing after him saying "He hit you!!  I'm going to beat the *** out of him! He hit you!!" So I then had to chase all the other boys down and calm them down and convince them that if they wanted to help me they needed to come back to the soccer field and keep playing with me. It's nice to know they have my back though :) These boys wont let anyone mess with me, I have my own little team of body guards.

Sneak Attack
One of my campers with Autism was telling me a story at dinner one night. This was a grand old story about a princess locked in a tower with a forest surrounding it. Then one day there was a gallant prince...he paused the story to say "I know! I am the gallant prince!"...okay Will, you can be the prince ha. The prince cut down all the trees in the forest and rescued the princess from the tower. Then he gave her a kiss! *At this point in the story he lunged at me and tried to kiss me...uh nope that's not happening! The little sneak! He ended up kissing my shoulder as I dodged his advances and told him he is not kissing me right now. He then replied "but I just did!" with a big grin on his face. What a story Will....I think i'm going to get him to tell it to another counselor and see what happens ha.

TLP Transfer
The TLP boys are the older boys with special needs, but they are a bit higher functioning and have a little bit more responsibilities around camp. I LOVE these boys! They are hilarious! Every time I see them around camp they always get really excited and wave and say "Hi Natalie! How are you?! Do I get to come to challenge with you today?!?" They are the best! One of the boys told me the other day that when third session comes I need to "switch to TLP from the mountain because I would be perfect in TLP and we want to see you every day!" These kids just know what to say sometimes to make my day!

Endless Entertainment!
JD, one of the most enthusiastic campers here, came to high ropes with me the other day. He always greets me by saying "Natalie I'm so excited to see you! Smile for me Natalie, I'm so excited Natalie". He is great! So he is really scared of heights, but decided he wanted to climb anyways. He got to the top of the pole and stepped on the wire to walk across (with ropes hanging that you hold onto to make your way across) and immediately started yelling "Oh sweet mother molasses!! Where are you Natalie? I can't die like this! Don't let me die like this!! Sweet mother molasses! Sweet mother molasses!! Natalie are you smiling?" I was laughing so hard I was crying! Then when he would take a step towards the next rope (still being about 4 steps away) he would hold out his hand and try to summon the rope using his Spiderman powers. Well...that's not quite going to work out for you bud, but nice try! He tried to spiderman the rope to him every time, and every time I died laughing! Such a funny guy!

Pause the story
One of my campers was struggling to listen at night when we were putting them all to bed. He needed to put something away before he could go to sleep but didn't want to give it up. Because it was a safety issue we couldn't just let it slide. He was laying face down on his bed with his face in his pillow and would not listen to a word any of the counselors said. I walked over there to see if I could help and heard him mumble something about watching his monster show. I had no idea what he was talking about, but decided to try something. I asked him is he could pause his show for a second so we could talk. He then lifted his head up, gave a powerful poke to his pillow, looked at me, and said "okay what?". That really worked?? You've got to be kidding me! So I started talking to him and explaining why he needed to give me the small chew toy, and every time he got bored with what I was saying he would poke his pillow and put his head back down. I had to keep reminding him to pause his show because we weren't done talking yet. He would lift his head back up, poke his pillow, and continue listening. Apparently he was convinced he was really watching a show in his pillow...well good for him if he has that good of an imagination! And thank goodness there was a pause button on that pillow!

Uh...you.
One of my campers returned to join our bunk during breakfast after being in the health center. In one fluid train of sentences he said, "Oops, I forgot to shower! *takes one bite of food and looks at something for a second* What is that smell??" Uh...that's you man! You just told me how you didn't shower and then asked me what smells bad....nice.

Shhhh....
During the talent show that the counselors put on for the kids to show them ideas for appropriate acts and to get them pumped for the camper talent show that follows a week or so later, one of the music counselors played a piece on her bassoon. One of the mountain boys who has autism but is higher functioning for the most part pulled his shirt over his head trying to cover his ears and started shouting " I don't want to hear it!! I don't want to hear it! It sounds bad!" While the other counselors were trying desperately to get him to be quiet I was trying my best to get my campers to stop laughing while trying to control my own laughter. Awful audience etiquette, but dang was that hilarious!!

**I took  more picture of camp, but unfortunately the computers are having technical difficulties and I am not able to upload them from my phone at this time. Gee dang it. I'll post them once I get that figured out.