Bedtime Bandit Strikes Again

So, I went upstairs at 7:15 this morning to wake up Teo for camp. He was all snuggled in under his quilt, with both hands in prayer position under his face nestled into the pillow, and he looked like an angel. For exactly ten seconds. Until I rubbed him on the back to wake him, and he stretched and rolled over and I saw...big black spots everywhere. He had black around his right eye like a shiner, huge spots of black on his pajamas and sheets, and lines of it on both hands. I sat there stunned for maybe another ten seconds until I saw the uncapped, black pen under next to his hip. The bedtime bandit had struck again.

Teo has always been a night owl, even when he was only three months old. Back then he'd take a little nap around 7:30 when we put Luke to bed, only to wake up a couple of hours later and want to party all night. Even when he still slept in the crib I would often go up there to check on him late at night and find that he'd managed to drag a book from wherever I'd left it into his crib and had ripped it to pieces. When his crib wasn't close enough to a bureau or bookcase to get anything, he'd slam dance it across the room. I literally had to put sneakers on the casters of the crib when he slept in it so he couldn't drive it across town.



When we moved him into a big boy bed, many books lost their lives. As a result, it hasn't really been a one-way trip. In fact, with Teo only three months away from his fourth birthday, I still have a portacrib set up in the corner of the boys' room that I pull out and make him sleep in when I discover him acting the part of the midnight marauder. Luckily, he hasn't figured out that he could easily climb out of the thing, and I hope that he won't at least until he stops destroying things after lights out.

So apparently after I left last night he took a pen that I had in his nightstand (so I could add the titles of the books we read to both boys' summer reading lists for school) and decided to write all over his hands and arms. He was giving himself tattoos. When he finally dropped off to sleep the pen was still in the bed with him and appears to have spent the rest of the night seeping into the cotton sheets, his cotton pajamas, and the skin under his pajamas. I had checked on the boys at about 10:30, but didn't see the evidence in the dark. I tried taking it off his skin with rubbing alcohol, but it was going to take way too much scrubbing with alcohol to get it all off, not to mention I couldn't use alcohol near his eye, and I really didn't want to use alcohol because he's been kind of rashy already. So I threw him in a bath and went at the stains with my exfoliating glove, which both boys treat as if it's a medieval torture device, so of course he wasn't thrilled. I had lotioned him up really well before bed, though, which made it a little better. Getting all the ink off his hands, though, just wasn't possible, and a really dark, big spot on his chest wouldn't all come off either. I just had to do my best and hope Tina can get some more off tonight.

The things that seem like a good idea to Teo late at night really scare me for his future. Luke said to me, "I never did anything like that when I was his age..." and I had to agree that in hindsight Luke was a perfect child.

So...anyone know how to get ink out of sheets?

Camp Woes

Well, although I haven't written since the beginning of the summer, the boys have had an amazing summer so far. We went up to camp for a week over the 4rth and had a wonderful time with the Slaters. The boys left right from NH for California with Teen for her cousin Nene's wedding. When they got back, Jen was visiting from Baltimore. Then we went back to NH with Caleb and Abe's family and they got to share their grandma's house and camp with some of their best friends. When we all left to come back to CT, the boys stayed in NH for Camp Camp, which seems to have been an amazing experience. Since then we've stayed closer to home, doing day trips to the Boston science and children's museum, a local state park, our local children's museum, the pool, etc.

This week, though, both boys started a two-week session at a local day camp. The camp is really idyllic, with a large, beautiful lake, huge playing fields, acres of woods with hiking trails, boats, a beach, a playground, and the kind of camp traditions you read about in nostalgic memoirs. Tina and I had paid a lot of money to give the boys this experience, because we always start to feel a little bad right around this time in the summer when we're just totally burnt out at providing new adventures every day. Unlike most of his friends, Luke has very little experience with summer camps. He did do one or two weeks (?) last year at an art-themed camp at a local day care that has really nice facilities, and he enjoyed that and had a good experience. In hindsight, though, that was a lot more like school than like camp.

On the first morning, T and I decided to bring the boys to camp instead of having them ride the camp bus. We found Luke's group (the Rangers) in the midst of a giant throng of children and teenagers that made me nervous. Luke kind of had that "I'm going to throw up" face on, the one he had at the beginning of his school play, but he was clearly going to suck it up. I found his counselor and introduced him and asked the counselor to introduce him to some kids. I heard the counselor asking what town he was from as we left with Teo, hoping that very soon the groups would split up and things would go well for Luke. Teo we walked down to the playground where the Scouts were, thankfully, segregated from the madness near the buses. He cried and didn't want to stay, and we had to give him to a counselor and leave him there crying for us, which was hellish as it always is.

The boys rode the bus home that day and Tina picked them up. After work, I went over to her apartment to see how their day was. Teo was hopping up and down with excitement about his day and all the fun things he did. He wanted to show me the lizard he painted in arts and crafts, and tell me about going swimming, and playing on the playground, etc. Then it was Luke's turn. He crawled into my lap and started weeping. He recounted (and Tina shared with me) that the boys at camp had "bad manners." They say "shut up" to each other, something that is verboten at our house. They jump off the dock without even looking to see if someone's swimming there below them. In the boys' locker room at changing time, they were showing off their penises, pulling the foreskins back and doing other phallic tricks. Luke was aghast. He said to T "You and mommy said that was private!"

I believe it was a complete culture shock for him. While Tina and I talked quietly in the other room, he bawled in his bed, moaning "I'm not going to have any fun!" It broke my heart. Tina said that apparently one of the first activities his group did was play soccer, and Luke took a ball in the stomach. He ended up sitting out for the rest of the time. This being the fourth session, I think a lot of the kids already knew each other and had been going for most of the summer, so Luke was like the new kid on the block. They tried archery, and he never hit the target (he hates not being good at something right away, which makes him really averse to trying new things). I asked him how his lunch was, and he said he only ate one of his cookies because he was so sad. He couldn't open his thermos and neither could his counselor (?!) so he didn't get to drink his lemonade. It sounds like it was really just one bad thing after another. I have to admit, it got me a little hysterical, too. "It's like Lord of the Flies!" I told C, and she calmly reminded me that it is a very reputable camp with lots of adult supervision and that nobody's head is going to end up on a stake.

I left, fearing that some of Luke's hysterics were for my benefit, and sure enough Tina called me in only a little while later to say she'd calmed him down and agreed that he could bring a Webkin hidden in his knapsack the next day, and that he could have a play date with C and N after camp the next day, both of which made him feel better. I called my sister for advice, and she told me that George Carlin, who died recently, left all of his money to the summer camp in NH that he went to when he was a boy sixty years ago! Apparently in his last years he had taken to wearing this medal that he won for theater at camp, and it was one of the things he was proudest of in his life. She also pointed out to me that camp was not a part of our upbringing, but is a really formative experience for many kids, one where they test their mettle and develop leadership skills.

I ruminated on it the whole evening and next morning. Tina was bringing the kids to the bus at 8:00, and I knew I wanted to meet them to see them off and give Luke some kind of talisman, but I couldn't figure out what. Finally I grabbed a blue sharpie. When the kids got there, I had Luke give me one of his hands. On the back of his palm I drew a lightning bolt. "This is to remind you," I said, "That when Harry Potter got to Hogwarts, there were guys there like Draco Malfoy, and Crabbe and Goyle, who were mean and didn't like him because of who he was. But there was also Ron, and Hermione, and Hagrid, and Hogwarts became Harry's favorite place in the whole world. You just need to find your own Ron and Hermione, and remember that if anyone doesn't like you, it's because they're jealous of how special you are." Luke beamed and seemed ready to face lions. We got the boys on the bus and I prayed (in my own fashion of course) for a better day.

He did have a better day, thank goodness, and things have been fine since that first day. On the second day he told me, "I realized I do have a friend. I think his name is Patrick." On Wednesday he confirmed, that yes, his friend's name is Patrick. On Thursday there was a Popsicle wrapper in his lunch box and he told me Patrick bought it for him at the camp store. I gave him money to treat Patrick the next day. Friday afternoon on the way home (I picked them up that day as a treat) he told me, "I found a Hermione today..." Apparently her name is Katherine and he made friends with her by giving her his water balloon. I guess every kid got only one balloon, and of course my Luke was like, "What the heck am I going to do with this?" so he traded it to this girl for some candy! Nice. Anyway, so on the ride home he starts saying, "Now I need to find my Draco Malfoy, and my Serious Black, and..." I'm not sure he gets the point of the metaphor, but at least he hasn't cried himself to sleep since that first day, and I hope that this experience will help him weather some of the scary stuff ahead.

I have to say that since that day both T and I have heard a lot of camp horror stories. Next week we are headed up to NH again for another week at my childhood camp, a place which may not have tested my mettle or turned me into a leader, but where I'm so grateful we can all find retreat from the Malfoys of the world.