First day of camp

I really shouldn't be wasting precious naptime this way, but...

Barak started camp today. By "camp," we mean camp in the frum sense of a bunch of two-year-olds in someone's basement and backyard. It's four hours a day for six weeks, and unbelievably cheap, and run by the same person who will be doing his in-home preschool in the fall. I don't need care for Barak for the next six weeks--I'm home for the next four and MHH is here for the two after that--but I thought he'd enjoy it, and frankly I need more sleep than I'm getting, so I enrolled him.

When we went out this morning, he knew something was up, and didn't seem at all worried--just excited. I told him we were going to Morah Esther's, and there were going to be kinderlach and toys, and this sounded good to him. He actually ran ahead of me down the path to the house where he'd never been before, and as we walked in he stopped in awe at the wonders laid out before him--toys and ooh, trucks! He clung to my leg at the door for all of nine seconds before pointing at the Little Tikes firetruck and asking me, "Imma? Firetruck fast?" and plunging forth. He didn't even blink when I left, impelled by the earsplitting screams of starvation from his baby brother who hadn't eaten in THIRTY-NINE MINUTES!

(Ways in which my kids are unlike anyone else's kids: Barak is unbothered by bodily injury and Iyyar is the loudest baby ever. In a room of twelve Orthodox mothers, who as you may imagine are not easily perturbed by children's spills or babies' cries, my kids had them all gasping. Barak plunged off of something--I didn't see it--and returned instantly to playing, ignoring the three nearby mothers with their hands out to deliver him to me; Iyyar's wails of misery drew looks of sympathy and consternation from mothers and children, when all I heard was his normal-volume kvetching. It's just that for him, normal volume is about 200 decibels.)

So, we came home, and I took care of Iyyar and cleaned up the house a little and still managed not to get a nap, and then we went back to get him at one. When I got there, he was still in the firetruck, though I was assured that he had gotten out in the meantime. Morah Esther said, "He cried for you a little here and there, but then he was on to the next thing." I have to admit that I was secretly pleased, just a little--it's good to have an independent kid but Barak is so independent and so fearless that it's nice to know that he missed me.

I went over and said "Hi, Barak! Did you have fun?" and he stopped and this look of delight and relief went over his face, and he breathed, "Imma!" And then ran over to Morah Esther, and pointed at me, and said, "Imma!" As if to say, that's who I've been asking for all morning! Next time, you'll know who I'm talking about and go get her, right?

I asked him if he wanted to go home, and he said no. I told him we'd be back tomorrow, and then he said, "Home?" And home we went.