Friday, August 30, 2013

Everything Imaginable

Apologies for taking so long to update with more stories. Updating my blog wasn't the first thing on my mind; I should have been better about it, but I wasn't. So, here are a million and one stories to make up for it. 

*Don't feel obligated to read them all at once, or ever. You can sit and read them all, read one or two a day, or just not read them. Your choice. 


Sights to See Around Ramapo
  • A child using a piece of grass to "floss" his teeth
  • A child making snowflakes out of tortillas while protesting against eating his meal
  • Super skinny 13 year old boy flexing and saying, "I'm ripped!"
  • A child telling me the fight started because "He was looking at me like I was the Statue of Liberty" --What?! What does that even mean?
  • Two boys in an intense argument. The debate...If Jesus can walk on water or not. 
  • All of the boys in my bunk making wishes that the buses will break down or a river overflow so that they have to stay at camp longer
  • My little man Juan beat boxing in the talent show. SOOOO good! And that isn't just me being biased, this kid has some serious talent!

THE DODGEBALL BATTLE OF 2013
One day we are all out having a great old time when out of nowhere the earth decided to mix things up a bit and it started raining like crazy. We had to run and try and find open spaces for our groups to hang out and continue their challenge period. The way it worked out I ended up sharing a open gym space with another mountain bunk (these are the 13-15 yr old behavioral boys with some autism mixed in) and the decision to play dodge ball for the last 15 minutes was made. 
Picture 10 or so teenage boys with behavioral problems throwing balls at each other, yelling, a few punches to the walls, counselors trying to clarify who is and isn't out, and basically just a lot of chaos and yelling. As this battle scene continues I start to hear opera playing in the background and try to figure out who brought in a radio and why in blue blazes they chose that station. After a speedy investigation I realize that it is in fact not a radio, but one of my kids with autism sitting against the back wall, stemming with a fork and a stick (which in his case meant twiddling them rapidly in the air while rocking back and forth) singing to himself. 
My two immediate reactions, 1) I couldn't stop laughing because he was singing opera in the background of dodgeball as balls slam the wall right next to him, and 2) I was amazed at how talented he was at opera. That as by far the best dodgeball period of the summer in my opinion. 


QUESTIONABLE COMPLIMENTS
As mentioned above, some of the boys are full of compliments. The best part is that they are so genuine and sincere! They are so genuine that I still feel special every time even when I hear them go tell someone else basically the same thing right after. Some of the comments I received were unique though. A.K., the little sweetheart, always had some line up his sleeve when he saw me. Every time he would see me he would tell me I have really pretty blue eyes, and that he loved my braid (usually followed by a stroke of the braid). A few were a little strange but brought a smile, such as telling me I looked like Rapunzel (because a long braid I had). 
Some, however, were a little questionable...he told the supervisor of his area, "Natalie's eyes sparkles in the moonlight" and gave me a huge grin. Me and the supervisor exchanged puzzled yet amused looks and then I asked A.K., "Have you ever seen my eyes in the moonlight A.K.?" He just smiled and that was that. Caught in the act of giving false compliments. I appreciate them anyway! My goal is to one day be able to be as genuine with my compliments as these sweet boys. They have also taught me to give compliments more frequent and openly. No shame in letting someone know why they are fabulous!


EYE-OPENING RESPONSE
There we were sitting in a circle, a nice afternoon breeze blowing, birds chirping, children smiling after having finished a phenomenal challenge period. They were answering the reflection questions I was posing so well that I could hardly believe it. I looked around, presented the next question, and received the most powerful answer I received all summer. It was an eye-opening response indeed, bringing things to a whole new level. 
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Jordan, a nonverbal low-ish functioning camper who was sitting next to me, contorted his body and sneezed a sneeze like I have neither hear nor seen before in my life. This explosion sparkled in the air as it erupted in my face, ricocheted off my face onto my arm, and dripped onto the grass beneath me. 
After a moment of complete and utter shock from the entire group (at least those high enough functioning to understand what just happened), I looked at Jordan who had his ever present grin on his face, said a few words to wrap up the discussion, excused myself, and walked to the bathroom to clean myself up while the others rolled around on the ground laughing their heads off. 
In a sad attempt to console me, the other counselors assured me that they have never seen anything like that before and didn't even know sneezes like that were possible. Yes, thank you, I was able to gather that on my own the moment a wall of snot slapped my face. This physical phenomenon is one that I will probably never forget, and wouldn't be too heartbroken if I never saw again. 


NO REALLY!
Every night before bed we had bunk meeting. This consisted of everyone in the bunk gathering in a circle on the floor, reading the schedule for the next day, and taking turns telling our high for the day and hope for the next day while eating a cookie with some milk. One of my campers was always interrupting with random and absurd comments that we had to either ignore or redirect because they would get the others either laughing or arguing. 
One bunk meeting as I was reading the schedule he declared, " I found a tooth!". Really? Where would he get a tooth from? Ridiculous. Yet it honestly wasn't that out of place so ignored him and continued. Within seconds he interrupted again to tell us again that he had found a tooth on the floor. This time I said some passing remark to address it without even looking up and kept going. After stating for a third time that he had a tooth I looked up to find that he actually, in fact, did find a tooth and was proudly waving it in the air. What?! How did that get there?! I'm pretty sure all my campers from the previous session left with all the teeth they came with...
After finishing bunk meeting I had to convince my camper that the tooth fairy only brings money to you if it is your tooth, so it really wasn't a good idea to put it under his pillow for the tooth fairy. This kids is 13...I mean I know he has autism, but he was brilliant and could tell me everything about anything I asked about (or things I didn't) including atoms and molecules and all that stuff. How did he miss the part where the tooth fairy isn't real? I finally convinced him to hand over the tooth and threw it out while he wasn't looking. 
I'm still baffled as to where that tooth came from, and find it ironic that C.J., off all the kids, was the one to find it. It was kind of like the boy who cried wolf story, except that part where the boy learns his lesson about tricking people and saying ridiculous things, that didn't change. 


UH...SORRY
Meal times were always interesting times that definitely kept me on my toes. One afternoon at lunch my coworker excused herself to go use the restroom, leaving me alone with the 4 kids at our table. As soon as she was out of sight one of my campers turns to me as enthusiastically says, "Okay! Lets girl talk!". I was so caught off guard that all I could do was stare at him for a moment. The best response I could muster up was, "what?".  He responded with, "you know, like sharing secrets and giggling and all that stuff". I still had no response for him besides laughter. I do have to admit it was a funny joke, but too bad he chose to ask this girl to "girl talk"...I don't think I've ever really known how to do that. Maybe I'll learn how and we can girl talk another day Juan. Maybe... 


DOODLES
I like to do little drawings of random things. I drew on the back of my clipboard and some of the campers noticed. One of my boys asked if I could draw him something, so I figured out what he liked and drew him a picture of Bugs Bunny with his name on it. The next thing I knew he had sweet talked me into drawing him two more pictures except he wanted different names on them. He made specific requests and told me what names to put on each. Come to find out he wanted those for his mom and a sister. Well come to find out again he has four brothers and two sisters...that meant a lot of drawing for me in a short amount of time. But I couldn't say no after I had drawn one for some of the siblings but not all. The little sneak! In exchange I asked him to draw me some pictures and got a few gems. Between that and his pure excitement to give those to his family it turned out to be a fair trade. He even included a bonus poem for free! It reads;
Roses are red
Violets are blue
God made me handsome 
and He made you pretty too


PRETTY GIRL
One of my campers would talk about how pretty one of the girls on the dining hall staff was and how much he wanted to tell her that but was too scared. I didn't see the harm in him telling her she was pretty, so I would tease him and encouraged him to tell her whenever he would bring it up. He was so nervous though and couldn't bring himself to do it. He just kept saying, " I can't! I can't! I'm too nervous!" The solution? He needed to practice. So at lunch one day I told him, "Nelson, if you want to build up your confidence you should practice. Okay, so lets practice right now." He started nodding in agreement until he heard the rest of my sentence, which was, "Tell Jon how pretty he is". Jon was my co-counselor in the bunk who sat across the table. The look on Jon's face was priceless. Nelson laughed and laughed, but then he realized I was serious. I wasn't going to have him practice on me, so who better to practice on than Jon? Let's just say that that was one of the most entertaining lunches I ate in that dining hall. Nelson practiced telling Jon how pretty he is, and Jon pretended to act like a girl. Classic!


TACT? WHAT IS THAT?
Some of these children lack a wonderful quality called tact. They say what is on their mind, which quite often should stay in their minds rather than be released to the public. I definitely heard plenty of instant enemy comments, but lucky for them I don't get offended and realized that I was working at a camp for special needs and behavior problems (AKA big lack in social skills is not uncommon) which meant it just supplied a good many laughs for me. 
For example, one night as I was getting the troops ready for bed and making sure they all brushed their teeth one of my campers announced, "Natalie, you're like a man in a woman's body!" What? Excuse me? He clarified by saying, "Yeah, because you have fun with us and play but also don't put up with our crap and say things like 'what did you say?' 'Do we have a problem here?' and when we are causing problems you are like 'Get up, were going outside. Now.' and things like that". 
I made the mistake of asking him why women can't say things like that which led to a slew of comments about how women are not strong and should listen to what men say and take orders from men instead of giving them, blah blah blah. I took that opportunity to remind him that the "men" I was giving orders to were 13 years old and my campers who I had responsibility over, as well as to let him in on some insight about how to treat women. Let just say we had a nice chat and after that his views of women were significantly improved and he had a chance to clarify what he had originally meant as a compliment. 


PERSONAL PET
Western day roles around, so naturally I dawn my belt buckle and braid my hair into two braids instead of the usual one down my back. What I wasn't anticipating was the personal pet that I would gain that day. Tragedy struck in high ropes and my hair got caught in the ATC (the belay device hooked to my harness which makes it possible to hold the climber in the air and lower them slowly to the ground). I held on with one hand to my hair, maneuvered the rope and lowered the climber with the other. Once the climber was safely on the ground I unclipped, freed my hair, and looked at the damage. The end of my braid had basically been burned off and was now a fuzzy poof ball. It looked and felt like a little animal on my head, so for the rest of the day I had a personal pet dangling from my head. With a lot of conditioner it isn't fuzzy anymore, but I'll be getting a hair cut when I get home to even things out...


BEDTIME STORIES
Night time routine can be a very difficult time. Some of these teenage boys aren't used to going to bed that early and especially not in a foreign place with a bunch of friends around. This sessions night time routines were very different from the previous two for my bunk. Early in the session one of my campers who acted all tough called me over to his bed. I was expecting him to ask me to turn on the fan, or get him a cookie, or something like that. Instead he caught me off guard by asking for a story. Huh? Like a bedtime story? Uh.....well.....um.....I don't really know any stories...He then told me it didn't matter, I should just make one up about anything and it didn't matter if it was any good. Well that wasn't happening; my creativity in that sense is pathetic. So I stumbled my way through Little Red Riding Hood (which I told completely wrong), said goodnight, and sat back down. The next night he asked for another, so I blundered through Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The following night I made up a new version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Oddly enough he actually liked my butchered stories and kept asking for more and more. Another camper picked up on the story telling business going on and wanted his share of stories as well. The night routine morphed into getting the kids into bed then I made the rounds and told bedtimes stories to the campers until either I got checked out or they fell asleep.
One night, after finishing a story, one of my campers asked me, "do you have kids?". I was confused, chuckled, and said no. He responded by saying, "Oh, well I thought maybe you did because you tell stories." He paused for a second then said, "Your kids are going to be really lucky. Thank you. Goodnight Natalie."
Good thing the lights were off so he couldn't see me tearing up. As rough and tough as these boys are, they all have a soft spot and really just need to be loved. Who knew that a bunch of 13-14 year old boys would love bedtime stories so much? I didn't anticipate this new routine, but it was my pleasure to tell them a story or two each night to help them fall asleep.


SUNSHINE IN MY SOUL
For some of the campers just putting on a harness in high ropes is a huge accomplishment. For others it is taking one step on the ladder then coming down, halfway up, or all the way. One camper that I was really close with never climbed in high ropes. Low ropes terrified him, and that is a foot off the ground. The last high ropes period of the summer was a big combined TLP climb of the sunshine tower. This is a climb that you cannot complete by yourself, you must use your partners to reach the top.
 As usual, AK was not planning on climbing, and for the first hour told me no, no, no, he was too scared. I readjusted our goal, promised I would be with him the whole time, and finally he agreed to climb! He was so excited about it and could hardly wait to get in a harness! I couldn't believe what was happening!! I hurried and got him into a harness and then got him tied into the rope. He told me he was very scared, but wanted to try anyways.
We started climbing and together, even through his intense fear and wanting to turn back, we reached the first platform, which was our goal. He gave my hand a big squeeze and then got down as fast as he could. He was beaming! I couldn't have been more proud of him! As we walked out of the woods at the end of the period he came up to me and told me that his high of the whole session was climbing with me and reaching our goal together. It was an amazing accomplishment for AK, and definitely one of my highs of the summer.


MR. SAGERS
Some of these boys are smooth. Or so they think...One day after a fabulous challenge period with my favorite TLP (older boys with special needs but still typically a little higher functioning) we were chilling and talking for a minute before they headed off for their next activity. They started asking me what I like to do outside of camp which turned into really random questions that I had no idea how to answer except with laughter. Then out of the blue one of them asked if I was getting married. Uh...at some point yes. They sure ran with that answer! They declared that they needed to find me a "Mr. Sagers" and started describing what my "Mr. Sagers" would be like. 
Fortunately for me, I don't have to marry who they described, because their idea of an ideal man for me isn't quite what I have in mind ha. Anyways, after quite a few descriptions of my future man, Josh, one of the boys, turned to me, looked me right in the eyes, and said "I could be your Mr. Sagers" and then smiled real big and sheepishly looked away. The others got all excited and started cheering and saying they could be my "Mr. Sagers" as well. They counted the age gap between us and tried to convince me that it wasn't that bad, just 5 years is all. Ha you sly dog Josh! Nice try, I'm flattered, but no go on that one.


SISTER!
I got pretty close with one of the teenage boys in a neighboring bunk and he would try to come and find me to spend time with me whenever he could. After a while he told me that I am like an older sister to him. He asked if it was okay if he called me sister, to which I responded, "only if I can call you brother". From then on whenever he would see me he would yell out "SISTER!!" and come running up and we would do our little secret handshake. He became very protective of me, and tried to spend as much time with me as he could. I know these kids bond with a lot of the counselors, but it was neat to have this connection and it made me smile every time he would call out sister and come running. 

One of the sunsets...its casual.

My very own personal pet. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it's better than nothing

The back of my clipboard that sparked the drawings for my camper and his entire family.