Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

The Joy of Walden West Summer Camp Registration

The morning was not pretty for me.  Today was summer camp registration for Walden West, a date I'd had circled on my calendar for months, with auto-reminders coming at me once a week.

I remembered the date for weeks and then, this morning, I forgot. When I saw the reminder pop up on my phone at 7am, I flew into panic mode.

Registration opens at 7:30am and every session for 2-7 grades fills within minutes, with the exception of the week of July 4th.

I logged in, brought up the registration page and waited, my first choice session circled on the calendar beside me.

At 7:30 exactly, I refreshed my page. Scrolling quickly down to the session I wanted, I clicked the add button but nothing happened. The site was now live, but it kept asking me to enter a name.

I remember having trouble with this before -- and we've been to this camp two summers so far.

What was happening? I kept clicking add, hoping it would bring up another screen so I could then enter my kids' names, but nothing came up. I was stuck.

At this point, I may have yelled out some not-so-nice words in front of my kids. Mind you, this was at 7:30am, the time when most parents are busy getting breakfast ready and kids out the door.

So there I was, with this screen that was doing nothing while my kids were doing nothing when they ought to have been getting dressed for school. In a panic, I called my husband over. "Look at this screen, what do I do?" I cried.

"You need to put in their names in those fields right in front of you. Right there," he said, pointing out the obvious. But he added, "Welcome to a website circa 1998!"

Sure enough, the fields were there on the same screen I'd been staring out this whole time. It just doesn't pop out. All I saw was the "add" session button, that's it.

All the sessions were filling, spots left were zeroing down. The session I'd wanted was gone. The time was 7:32am.

So I went for another session and got in by the skin of my teeth. The rows of sessions were hard to eyeball and I very nearly registered my boys for two separate sessions. My hands were shaking.

I stumbled out of my office and down to the kitchen to finish making breakfast. I could barely think of what to do... my adrenaline was still racing. It's ironic to have to go through this stress just to register my sons for a week of stress free summer camp in the mountains!

Walden West is the only camp on our list that fills so quickly. The others usually have more availability because their programs are bigger and spread out amongst more locations. Walden West has one location for summer and that's it. Parents are limited to one week of camp per child unless there's availability later on.

It's crazy. I hate having to go through this just to get my kids into Walden West. But that said, even though we didn't get into my preferred week, they will have fun. Walden West is an amazing summer camp experience, the kind that kids will talk about when they're grown. It's a true summer camp, with no heavy curriculum, just kids and nature. It's probably a lot like Hidden Villa camp.

We are also going to Camp Galileo, a science camp with a curriculum. My kids love it there, too. I like to mix things up, a little bit of free roaming at Walden West and a little bit of structured camp at Camp Galileo, plus some other camps and mini vacations thrown in for good measure.

What are you doing this summer? If you registered for Walden West, do you have a method to the madness? Do you have two laptops going at registration? There was no joy in the process of registering for Walden West summer camp, none.

The take home message? For newbies, set up an account in advance so that all you need to do is the registration part on the big day. For returnees, make sure you log-in and do a registration run-through in advance, even if you've gone through registration there in years past. This will be our 3rd summer at Walden West and I still didn't remember what to do on registration day. I'd totally forgotten to do a run-through and registration day crept up even though I had reminders buzzing everywhere. I'm just lucky my laptop remembered my Walden West password.

See you at camp!

 

 

 

 

How Does a Mother Cope with Three Sons Lost?

Old images wave to me from the Super 8 film. It was a happy time, a father and his four children sledding down a snowy hillside behind their home in Southwest France. "Maman!" they wave as the camera follows them in a blur. Down they slide, sometimes alone and sometimes doubled up. Then, images of the father, dragging the sled up the hill, over and over again.

I notice blue sky above the scene and wonder, what might I have been doing as a child on that same day long ago, under that same sky, a continent away? 

Another reel of another day long since gone, and this time, it's Christmas morning. In every frame, the French father is looking down, puzzling over toy assembly, surrounded by kids. We are seeing this world through her eyes, the mother.

My father, too, probably spent that same Christmas morning assembling toys.

The reel flickers to an end and the French boyfriend smiles and says, "That is the life of P family," and I smile to see him dusted in happy childhood memories. I go to the window and spot the hill, the one made just right for sledding on rare snowy days. Happy memories happened right there.

I'm often struck by the stories behind old images of young families. It's the time before life happened and things perhaps got tricky. I'm drawn to those old images, wondering about the in between, from marriage to divorce, from birth to old age, from innocence to reality. Sometimes it was a path well chosen, and sometimes not. It's a bit voyeuristic in an Ebenezer sort of way.

There was a room in the old French house, the only one on an in-between floor. It was here that the oldest brother died, a few years before I viewed those Super 8 films. The door was always closed, as if shuttering off a life. In this room is where one of the boys on the sled ended up, dying of AIDS as young man. We sneak a peek and see the bed, dark like a tombstone. I was years away from being a mother, but my heart ached in sympathy for the mother and for the father.

The French boyfriend didn't last, and I moved on. Then, a few years later, a devastating call at work. "Did you hear about our friend?" the caller asked. "He took his life."

And the world fell from under me. It wasn't remorse over the demise of our brief relationship. It was more that I was standing at the abyss of loss beside his mother, feeling her pain.

Once in a great while, she creeps into my mind, this mother, and I wonder how she has been coping, if she has been able to cope. Now that I am a mother, I cannot fathom the sadness she must feel at two sons lost.

There is another son, and a daughter. Hope.

I've never known the details of how her youngest son left this world. I only know it happened in the adjacent guest house, the morning of a significant birthday. His dog had been barking and then they found him.

Recently, I wondered if anything had been written about him. Memoirs can be therapeutic, did they write one, his parents? I don't know them anymore, and barely ever knew them at all, but still, I do remember. So I threw his name out into the Internet and got... nothing. I remembered his brother's name, it was either this name or that name and so I typed in both and there, on the screen, I saw him.

It was the same face peeking out of his surviving brother, a face I hadn't seen in 15 years. The resemblance was remarkable. But it was older and lined, framed by long loose curls and flourished with mauve spectacles. Him! Well, not him, exactly, but the other older brother, who was now a SHE, a middle-aged she.

The surviving brother openly identifies as transgender, and recently came out. I skimmed the article, written in French. Her parents don't speak to her, her children don't speak to her.

I know -- good for her for being true to herself. But I can't help but think about the parents. That's three sons lost. Indeed there was a daughter found, but not without some pain, I'm sure.

This is why the past is sometimes best left in the past. The reality might have been different, but in the way back, forgotten part of my mind, it was comforting knowing the parents had two happy, healthy surviving children.

I wonder how they cope with three sons lost? One lost to AIDS, one to suicide and one to the opposite gender role? The cumulative loss must be profound.

My mind races back to that reel, back to that time before the darkness. I go back to that snow covered hill and see children playing, their parents by their side. They are young and fresh-faced and alive. They have no idea how it will turn out.

Like the Ghost of Christmas past, I want to tell them all to take a different path. I want to hug the parents, for I know what's coming.

I realize this is a downer of a post, and not in keeping with my usual posts about children's museums and tooth fairies, but it's a story of childhood and life and the road one family traveled.

I wish the mother of these three lost sons well.

 

Image: Microsoft Clipart

 

 

Camp Galileo: These Stars say it's all good!

It's February, the month I usually start thinking about summer camps.

This will be our second year of Camp Galileo (aka Camp G). Check out my son's video in that post and you'll see how engaged he was (at age 6) during his week of sleuthing about impressionist paintings as a "detective in Paris" this past summer.

My boys almost never vividly describe their day to me at pickup. They say that everything was "good." School was good. Camp was good. The birthday party was good. Basically, it means they're blowing me off. It means, I did it and it was GOOD and now I'm busy playing so leave me alone! I have to wait a few hours or days for the details to come pouring forth. Some details never come.

I mention this because last week, I recently had the chance to sit down with the team at Galileo Learning and explore beyond my kids' one word descriptor. Turns out the word "good" is just a springboard for the Galileo Innovation Approach which means, always: Be Visionary, Be Courageous, Be Collaborative, Be Determined and Be Reflective.

This mindset, repeated in the curriculem for every theme, at every camp, year after year is important. Children will learn, over time and with repetition, to use this mindset when faced with a challenge; and they'll learn how to gather knowledge in the process of creating and bringing a new idea to fruition.

School gives my kids the basics. Camp Galileo teaches kids what to do with those basics in a variety of disciplines such as art and science. I wish that Camp Galileo were an after-school option for kids, so that they could take what they've learned in school and apply it in a way that's fun and reflective of real life matters.

My kids are Camp Galileo campers, that is, they are between Pre-K and rising 5th graders. When they become rising 5th to 8th graders, they will be eligible for Galileo Summer Quest (one week format) where I'm sure they'll beg me to sign them up for Video Game Design camp. Rising 4th to 8th graders can apply hands-on learning in science and technology at The Tech Summer Camps. And new this year, is the Chabot Space and Science Camp for rising 4th to 8th graders. All of this falls under the guidance of Galileo Learning.

There are four Camp Galileo weekly themes lined up for 2012. Nebulas (pre-K and kindergartners), Stars (rising 1st/2nd graders, like my kids were last year) and Supernovas, rising 3rd - 5th graders) can look forward to themes that can be divided into art, science and outdoors.

Briefly, some highlights are:

Galileo Olympics: Greek Art and The Science of the Games

Nebulas will construct a leaf-adorned victory head wreath and make a foam stamps to embellish their ancient Greek tunic.

Stars get to mold their own gold and bronze medals and fling about new terms like "fluid design."

Supernovas will be crafting with paper-maché and using impulse force. My kids have never done paper-maché so I'm sure this will be a fun, messy project. Then they'll learn about owls and as any Harry Potter fan will tell you, owls are not only wise, but they're magical as well. Then, if that were not enough, my boys will have the chance to test out a bow and arrow during an archery event. 

I'm thinking we might go with this theme, as it might awaken an interest in this summer's 2012 Olympics in London.

Celebrate the Golden Gate: SF Art and Bridge Engineering

San Francisco is our backyard stomping grounds and I know it like the back of my hands. Sometimes, we go about as natives and other times, we just play tourist. I love how this theme is relatable to the day trips we make to San Francisco.

Nebulas will learn the history of the Dutch Windmill (the one out by Ocean Beach) and then make their own out of clay.

Stars will craft a Lombard Street collage and learn to build a bridge.

Supernovas will make a 3D painted lady (Victorian house) and engineer a suspension bridge. I'm sure it will all be trickier to do than it looks!

Leonardos's Apprentice: Renaissance Art & Inventions

Evidence of Leonardo's influence is everywhere. My boys and I recently watched a Nova episode called Mystery of a Masterpiece. I have a massive coffee table book on Leonardo which my grandmother passed down to me. My boys have read many books in which Leonardo appears as a character (like Monday with a Mad Genius). I like that I'll be able to round out what my boys learn during a week studying Leonardo just by looking around me.

Nebulas will embellish a Renaissance sketch book and explore the concept of sink or float, to name a few of the activities they'll be doing.

Stars will pratice shading and painting to make clouds. I'm an Art Vistas docent at my kids' school so I enjoy anything that ties into the work we're doing there, and yes, we have learned to make clouds!

Supernovas will paint their own frecoes.

Galileo Rocks! The Art and Science of Music

This theme links art masters like Picasso and Matisse to instruments depicted in their works.

Nebulas will make sea masks and design drums of different diameters.

Stars will use a kalimba to explore prong placement and length in relation to pitch. Then they'll get their groove on and practice rhythm and movement.

Supernovas will create a mixed media collage (think Kandinsky) and make a guitar out of nylon, cardboard and wood!

My kids will be doing two weeks at Camp G (some people do 4 weeks or more!). We've yet to nail down the themes, but one thing is certain, I will NOT be packing lunch! New this year to Camp G, lunch and snacks will be provided by ChoiceLunch. It's an additional fee, but after 9 months of packing lunches this school year, I am done. And it's not like I'm giving my kids the license to gobble down pesticide laden junk food, either, no - it's ChoiceLunch, which provides healthy, hormone and antibiotic free meats and dairy. We're going to give the lunch option a go.

The other thing I like about Camp G is the counselors. All the lead instructors are college graduates. With less than 10 percent of applicants accepted, landing the role of a Camp G leader is prestigious indeed!

A camp is a camp is a camp, right? Wrong!

So what I learned from my kids is that in its simplest interpretation, "good" equals fun. But what I learned from the hard working team at Galileo Learning is that good and fun equal the Galileo Innovation Approach. It means that slowly and without realizing it, my kids will pack along some helpful tools they'll need as they go out into the world. They'll learn ways to be visionary, courageous, collaborative, determined and reflective.

According to my Stars, it's all good.

Did I mention the discount? Refer friends and you both get $40 off. In fact, you'll get a $40 reduction with each referral. That's a crazy discount.

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Disclaimer: Galileo Learning invited me to a discussion centered around the Galileo Innovation Approach. They are giving my kids one free week of camp each because they want to hear my feedback, both positive and negative. So stay tuned for our post-camp write up later in the summer!