A Happy Camper or Not?

The blog is mostly about my two youngest with special needs but this particular post is a little different. Don’t click out when you see the word “bible.” I’m not going to preach to you here. Although my religious beliefs and convictions are extremely important to me and I’d love to share those with you, I am not going to do that here. I’ll get around to my autism related thoughts on this post eventually but you’ll have to take a walk down memory lane with me first. And by the way, if you do want to know more about my religious beliefs then private message me. I only have one topic I like to discuss more than autism. It’s the bible.

I just spent a week in Texas at a bible camp for young people. I was a part of something great there. This particular week at this particular camp was focused on leadership. There were classes on how to lead a song, study the bible, and how to outline, write, and present a lesson. At the end of the week many of the campers presented their first devotional or led a song or public prayer for the first time. Their enthusiasm was so encouraging.

Bible camp has been a huge part of my life as long as I can remember. I loved going as a child. There were bonfires, hayrides, and late night devotionals, crafts, pranks, and silly songs, old friends reunited, and new friends made. We had ping pong tournaments, played card games, and even had watermelon seed-spitting contests. I fell asleep in a rustic cabin with the sounds of girls giggling and crickets and frogs singing. The perfume of the week was always bug spray and sweat. Going to camp was as exciting to me as Christmas. I would pack a week ahead, unpack, and repack. Before I was old enough to go to Little Blue Bible Camp in Missouri, at age nine, I jealously watched my older siblings gather their swimsuits, flashlights, bug spray, ball gloves, and Bibles every year. I’d follow them to their cabins and watch them choose their bed for the week, anticipating the day I would be able to do the same. I remember the first year I was old enough to stay. I got a top bunk and was ecstatic. The abundance of spiders was hard on me but even those spiders could not deter my enthusiasm for camp. As I got older I also went to camp in Kansas and in Nebraska. I loved every one of them. 

When I aged out of going to these camps as a camper, I began going as a counselor. Between my sophomore and junior year of college I spent a whole summer working at a camp in Arkansas near Harding University where I attended college. That was an amazing summer. Three of my kids have chosen to spend their summers working at a camp after they were too old to go as campers. Currently, two of my children are working at Green Valley Bible Camp in Rogers, Arkansas all summer. They are the lifeguards and kitchen help there. They love their jobs.

The camp I attended this week was near Maud, Texas. It is called Camp Ida. I was in charge of crafts. I also worked in the kitchen and it was exhausting work. It was hot and I am covered in mosquito bites, but I am so glad I went. I made some wonderful new friends and heard some great lessons. The bug bites will fade but the friendships and wonderful memories will last.

I was asked the same question many times this week: “Why didn’t you bring your kids?” It is a fair question. Tate is 13 and Sydney is 11. They should be going off to bible camp each summer just as their older siblings have, right? Oh how I wish I could have taken them with me. Most of my readers “know” Tate and Sydney well enough to understand why I did not take them to camp. Sydney actually would have loved camp. Once we got past that first hour in the morning and her medications took control of her hyperactivity she would have been able to sit for most of the daytime activities. But in order to really participate in things she would have needed adult support. She may actually be able to go to camp one day.

It makes me sad but Tate will most likely never go to camp. Tate’s autism and the anxiety that comes with it keep him from doing so many of the things his older siblings have loved. Tate is miserable even visiting the campgrounds his older siblings have attended. He’s grown up watching his older siblings happily ready themselves for a week of camp but instead of anticipating the day he can go, he lives in fear of us sending him to camp too. Recently a friend asked him if he was old enough to go to camp this year. Tate immediately said, “No. I am home-camped.” It cracked me up. He knows what homeschooling is and extended that to camp. I celebrate when he is creative or original because there was a time when he was not able to communicate that way.

As I looked around me this past week at the beauty of the campground and I heard the children playing, singing, and participating in bible classes, I tried to picture Tate there. He would have been using stims to cope and he would have appeared very odd to the other campers. Being the great kids they are, they would have tried to include Tate but he would only have wanted to talk about how many days and hours there were left until he could leave. He would not have been able to sleep at camp and he would have not eaten most of the food available to him there. He would not have enjoyed the pool because he only swims at home when it is quiet and there is no splashing. He would have hated the smells, the sounds, and the heat at camp, but more than any of that he would have hated not being able to have a dvd player in one hand and an ipad or ipad in the other. His movies are as important to him as the food he eats.

I got several texts from Tate this week and a few phone messages. Although he was being very well cared for, he was anxious because I was not home. He went into crisis mode when one of his favorite movies stopped playing due to a scratch on the disc. Of course the scratched disc is one that is not commonly sold at stores so it had to be ordered. Thus he has worried, paced, rung his hands, missed out on sleep, and talked of little else for the past few days. Tate will check the mail each day until it arrives, insisting the date of arrival we were given is probably a mistake and it will actually come earlier. This is our life. This is autism. Autism has robbed Tate of so many precious things, bible camp included.

Want to read more about autism? Try this one: Unpredictability

No Regrets: The Things I Did Right

I have seventy-five blog posts up now. Most are connected to autism or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. A few have nothing to do with either. In December I wrote a blog post called “Regrets” and to-date it is my most read post. I suppose that should tell me something. You can read it here: http://quirks-and-chaos.blogspot.com/2013/12/regrets.html This post is a follow-up to that one, a sort of contrast. In the former post I spoke of the things I would do differently. The following are some of the things I would do exactly the same.

One of the things I do NOT regret is that my children have often heard, “We will have to ask Daddy”. My kids have grown up knowing that Dad was “in charge.” If I wanted to spend a large sum of money then I had to okay it with their dad. If the kids wanted to go somewhere I was unsure of, we waited to ask their Dad.  When occasionally one of the kids asked me “not to tell Daddy” it wasn’t going to happen. I share everything with their daddy. This, I do not regret. Candace Cameron-Bure wrote a blog post recently that rocked Hollywood. She said she was submissive to her husband and explained why. The media tried to make Candace look ridiculous over this. Being in submission to your husband is not something to be embarrassed about.

I also do not regret waiting three years after we were married to start our family. Shawn insisted that we needed to have some time alone before we added kids. It was a really good idea. It gave us so much time to plan and talk about what we each expected and hoped for, as well as save a down payment for a home. The first three years I worked and we saved my paycheck. We used Shawn’s paycheck to live. We always planned for me to be a stay-at-home-mom and it was much easier to do with the house already purchased and a budget set in place. Shawn has worked two jobs most of our married life and I have done some daycare off and on for many years so that I did not have to work outside the home. It is not possible for every mother to stay home with her children and not every family desires to structure their family this way. Some of the best moms I know work full time. I do not believe it is wrong for a mother to have a career but it was not for me and I have no regrets.

I do not regret that I insisted my children do chores and learn how to clean the house. I do not regret that I taught them how to load and unload a dishwasher, sort laundry and start the washing machine, run the vacuum, mop a floor, and clean a toilet. I do not regret that they were making cookies and other “messes” in the kitchen at a fairly young age. I do not regret that they have all had to mow lots of grass in the summer and rake lots of leaves in the fall. I do not regret that my sons have gone to work with their Dad and learned how to use tools. I do not regret that my older children had to take care of their younger siblings occasionally and even help them with their homework. I have no regrets about having a large family and doing without a few “extras” because of it.

I do not regret showing my children what love looks like. When I was growing up I had wonderful parents who showed affection to each other often. As a small child I remember squeezing in-between my folks often when they were sitting close together. As an older child I remember saying, “gross” when they kissed in front of me. There was never a doubt in my mind that my parents loved each other very much. My children have grown up seeing affectionate parents too. Of course, we are not inappropriate, but often show our love for each other. We hold hands, kiss, give hugs, sit close, and say sweet things to each other in front of our children. Until recently, it never occurred to me that other parents are not doing this. Our kids are telling us differently. Many of their friends have reported to them that they have never seen their parents show affection to each other. This astonishes me. I will never regret teaching our children what a strong marriage looks like. I love that my children know that I am “crazy in love” with their dad. 

Bible Camp!!

I do not regret all the times I sent my kids to a church related activity when they wanted to skip it. A few years ago I listened to a man lamenting about his young adult son who had stopped coming to worship services. He was wishing there was something he could do. I kept thinking the whole time: “the time for ‘doing something’ was a long time ago.” I was remembering all the Bible camps and youth rallies the boy had been invited to. He did not “like” to go to those things; he did not “want” to go to those things; so his parents did not SEND him to those things. His parents did not neglect his physical health, his academic education, his sports practices, or his hygiene. Why then did they let him make his own choices when it came to those spiritual activities? Not all of my children have “liked” the rustic Bible camps we have taken them to but they went anyway because their parents chose for them to go. They grew spiritually because of their experiences there. I can also remember how “inconvenient” it was for their dad to set aside a Saturday to take our oldest to a youth rally in Kansas City. He did it anyway. The Bible camp the kids attend faithfully every summer is at the most inconvenient time for their dad’s HVAC business but he takes a week off and goes with them. It sometimes comes at the risk of losing customers. He’s done this since our oldest was nine years old. I cannot count the number of gospel meetings we’ve been to or hosted at our own congregation. These things were very important for the training of our children. We do not regret all the time, travel, and money involved in this! This is something we did right. Young parents: Do not neglect your children’s spiritual health. Look ahead and picture them as strong Christian adults and think about what it will take to make that happen! Take advantage of Christian camps, area-wide singings, gospel meetings, and youth rallies! Your child may meet their best friends there.

I do not regret all the school events and sporting events we missed to attend Wednesday evening Bible class. The message we sent our children every time we missed a school band concert, vocal concert, or school sporting event was that God is more important than anything else. Every time our kids had to explain to the director of the school play or their coach that they would not be available to practice or perform on Sundays or Wednesday evenings, helped them to realize what kind of a commitment it takes to be a Christian. 

I do not regret all the school events we said, "no" too. We told our children from a very young age they would never be attending school dances. The girls would never be going out for cheerleading or any other activity that would require them to dress immodestly. Because we told them BEFORE those opportunities arose, the kids already knew they did not even need to ask. Of course many of their friends thought they were being so mistreated because they did not attend dances or go to the school proms. I don't think my kids missed out on much and I don't think they even believed they were missing out on much by the time these things came around. Children need to learn how to live in the world without being a part of the world. It can be done. 

2002 Visit

I do not regret insisting our children attend a Christian University, the most conservative Christian University we could find. We began to tell our children when they were toddlers that they would be attending this University. We took them there as young teens and they became familiar with the campus. We did not let them choose where they were going if we were going to pay the tuition. What are our reasons? We want our children to spend their first years away from home under the guidance of Christians, surrounded by like-minded peers. We want them to be at a place where the majority of students and all their teachers attend the Church of Christ. We want our children to be at a university where their classes begin with a prayer, where they begin their school day with the singing of hymns and a devotional in a worship setting. We want them to be able to go to their professors with religious questions as well as academic questions and get the correct answers. We want them to be in a place where they are privileged to have teachers like Dan Winkler and Loy Mitchell. 

2012 Graduate

 We want them to be at a place where temptations are fewer (not non-existent, but fewer.) I know they eventually have to be out in the “real” world (but better at 22 than at 18.) I know the tuition is double or triple that of a state school or a junior college. I know that we will potentially be repaying student loans when we are also paying for our nursing home (HA). This is not a post judging what YOU do or have done but a post about the things I do NOT regret verses the things from an earlier post that I DO regret.  I am not trying to bash state schools or upset anyone and hope that I do not. I have many relatives and Christian friends whose children are at State Universities.

These are some of the things I do NOT regret. These are the things I believe we have done right so far. Thanks for reading. You might also like to read: Don't Blink

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