Weekend Journal

Last summer, we sent Jonah to Fancy Camp for four weeks to give him a chance to muck around in the woods and sing songs and have watermelon pit fights. He had a marvelous time, and we’re planning on sending him again next summer. I’m not sure if Fancy Camp is any different from Boy Scout camp, and we’ll have to do some research for lower cost places when we get some spare minutes.

Fancy Camp sends Jonah tons of crap with its logo on it. Last week,
they sent him hot chocolate and a mug. He’s gotten folders and rulars.
He also received a wedding-style video of last summer’s activities.
With a soundtrack of Raffi and High School Musical 2, it features hours
of rich suburban kids smiling, waving, swimming, paddling in boats.
When the disk first arrived the boys and I popped it into the DVD player
hoping for a glimpse of Jonah. After one viewing, the video should have
been dumped in the garbage.

When Ian comes home from school, he likes to put on the Fancy Camp
DVD and sit back on the sofa with a snack. I think he likes the video
so much, because of the music. I’ve got "Bananaphone" stuck in my brain
again. Ian also likes to watch all the kids swimming together and
taking dance classes and playing softball and marching in parades. When
the kids all link arms and shout to the camera, "I LOVE FANCY CAMP,"
Ian shouts it along with them.

Ian can’t go to Fancy Camp. He has to spend his summers with ten
other kids in school for speech therapy. His classmates aren’t singing
and dancing together and making big, loud fun like on the Fancy Camp
video. Ian’s classmates, like Ian, either have speech problems or are
too hyper to sit still. His classroom will have almost as many
grown-ups as kids, and grown-ups aren’t interested in big, loud fun.

I don’t think it occurs to Ian that he could also be at this camp.
He doesn’t look sad, while watching the video. He doesn’t ask me if he
can go also. He watches the video as an outsider, an observer. He knows
that he’s different. He loves that kids can have fun, but he just
doesn’t think that he can be included in it.

Steve and I were willing to spoil Jonah with this ridiculous camp
that sends him mugs and hot chocolate, because we wanted him to have
four weeks of outside activities. We wanted him to get away from
computer games and classrooms and the four walls of this house. I’m a
little sad that Ian can’t have that experience also. I am every more
sad that Ian don’t know that he deserves that fun, too.