Weeks 3 and 4 at Camp K!

Week 3 at Camp K was youth with physical disabilities. I had 2 wonderful campers: J, who had both physical and mental disabilities, and A who had only physical disabilities. It was a lot of hard work having 2 campers in wheelchairs, but my campers were so absolutely adorable! One of my favorite memories from this week was watching our non-disabled campers interact with our disabled campers. One time, four boys around the age of 12 wanted to play a game of basketball; 2 were in wheelchairs. As I watched from a distance, the 2 boys not in wheelchairs each picked one of the boys in wheelchairs to be on their team, and countless times one of the nondisabled boys stopped moving towards the basket to hand one of the boys in a wheelchair the ball and give him a chance to shoot. Such good kids! Or the time I was making E a bracelet that took 20 minutes to make, he spent those entire 20 minutes interacting with my camper J, trying to make him laugh. Seriously, what 11 year old boy uses free time to make a disabled boy smile? Not very many. It made me so happy to watch!
Week 4 at camp (teens and adults with cognitive disabilites) was probably one of my favorites so far, just because it was a very special week for me. I owe a lot of it to my 2 amazing campers I had this week! My first camper was B (I'm not allowed to specify names, due to privacy issues :/ )He's 26, has downs syndrome, and is the highest functioning camper I've ever had. He did everything on his own, completely without prompting, and waited patiently for hours at a time while I got my other camper ready. He never once complained, just always smiled and cracked the silliest jokes. Every night before bed, he waited for an hour while I got my other camper ready until I could come read the Book of Mormon with him before bed. He prayed to himself before every meal, and one time I walked into his room to check on him and he was sitting on the edge of his bed praying. It was the sweetest thing! Reading the scriptures with him every night before bed always made the stress and exhaustion of the day just disappear. I couldn't have asked for a better camper!
My other camper, S, was very physically demanding to take care of, but he taught me so much. S and his twin brother were born prematurely with cerebral palsy; is twin brother died 4 days later. On the first day of camp, S's mom gave me a book when she dropped him off. It was a book he made, in honor of his twin brother, using the words from the song "I believe in Christ" and amazing artwork from his older brother. I didn't have time to pick up the book and read it until Wednesday, and when I realized what it was, it brought tears to my eyes. The first page reads "I believe" and has a picture of 2 small baby boys attached to machines. The second page continues the song with the words "in Christ", accompanied by the same picture, except this time there is only one baby boy. The other one is gone. The book continues in this way, following along with the song while showing pictures of S struggling through grief, pain, and surgeries, but at the same time remaining hopeful through Christ. There is a picture of him looking up at a bright blue sky with a smile on his face as he sits in his wheelchair, and on the last page is a picture of Christ standing with open arms. It is probably the most touching book I've ever seen. Though S has stuggled and will always struggle with his disability, he pushes forward with a steadfast faith in Christ. And the same could be said about my other camper, B. Witnessing that strengthened my own testimony so much! Which is why this week was so special to me, apart from the usual fun of canoeing, fishing, ropes course-ing, horseback riding, making s'mores, singing, dancing, etc. My campers are teaching me so much about how much we have to be grateful for! S wasn't supposed to live, but he's defied science and keeps on bringing joy to those around him every day, not knowing which day will be his last. I don't think I'll ever take another moment of my life for granted, thanks to him. I loved my campers this week so much!

Week 2 at Camp K: Teenagers with Cognitive Disabilities

My goodness, this week at camp was a tough one! While last week I had to worry about my campers falling asleep during activities, this week I had to spend every moment watching and running around making sure my campers didn't run off and get into trouble! This week I had direct responsibility over 2 campers: K and M, who called himself the fire dragon guy. K was a very difficult camper; I was responsible for all her ADL's (like showering, changing her diaper, brushing her teeth, getting her dressed, etc), she was usually nonresponsive by choice, almost never listened to directions, and would "plop" on the ground for 20 minutes at a time refusing to get up. M, on the other hand, was a wonderful camper, loved by everyone, and could do most of his ADL's on his own; he just had a tendency to run off, which made it hard to keep track of him while I had to stay behind with slow-moving K, especially for long periods of time when she plopped! This week was exhausting, working 7:30am until 9pm with campers who had tons of energy and little desire to follow directions. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't still incredibly rewarding! My camper, M, made me laugh and told me nice things all week. Here are some of his favorite sayings: "You are spiffy and smart!" "You're my best friend buddy in the whole wide world" "You're a smart girl" "You are soooo sweet." haha. And with him, everything is a fire dragon! The horses were fire dragon horses, the canoes were dragon boats, the fish he caught were dragon fish, the rope bridge on the course was a dragon bridge. My favorite was when he took the cover off of the pool table and wrapped it around himself, convinced it was a fire dragon parachute. Silly me for thinking it was just a regular pool table cover. K (a different K then my camper, but he was also in my group) sang his same song over and over, which we all learned and got stuck in our head every day. It went like this "I walk the line, because your mine, I walk the line, ha ha ha, hee hee hee, school is double uuu, and you shake it all about, that's what it's all about, yea!" S was absolutely hilarious without trying and made me laugh so hard all week long! He would always ask "How old's your daddy?" or 'S:"M sneeze?" Me: "Yep!" S:"Why?" Me;"Because his noise tickled" S;"Noise tickled?" Me:"Yea!" S:" (laughs, then gets a serious face) M sneeze?"' and the whole thing started over again. It was so funny! D would always ask me to tickle him, and then crack up laughing when I did. D swore like a sailor when he first came to camp, but we worked with him constantly and he was saying such nicer things by the end of the week! C was such a sweetheart who would always give the best hugs and have the biggest smile on her face. And the other C, one of the biggest trouble makers at camp, I found absolutely hilarious, but that's only because I wasn't responsible for him. It always made me laugh to look up and see C half way across the field with 3 people frantically chasing after him again. It happened about every 20 minutes.
Other than the funny moments, there were also the moments that made all the hard work worth it. One of my favorites was on the ropes course this week- I was up on the platform doing transfers, so I got to be up there and watch my campers climb on up. I watched them struggle but persevere and then light up with a smile whenever they finished an element of the course. Also, at the beginning of the week, we sit down with our campers and come up with three goals for the week, and watching them make progress on their goals during the week just makes me so happy! This week feels like a blur, since there was no moment to rest and I was always running around chasing a camper or getting something for a camper or taking a camper to the bathroom or to the nurse. But I absolutely fell in love with our batch of campers this week and had a lot of fun with them! There's a lot of them that I'm going to miss. And to all you mom's who have raised more than one teenager at once, I give you huge props, because I could barely last a week =P
I can't wait for week 3 of summer camp to start!

Week 1 at Camp: Adults with Cognitive Disabilities

First week as a camp counselor! It was wonderful :) I didn't realize how much hard work it requires to be someones caregiver; I also didn't realize how much love I could hold in my heart. From the moment our campers were dropped off on Monday, we spent every waking moment with them: we woke them up, dressed them, changed their briefs, helped them brush their teeth, made sure they got their medicine, fed them, took them to all the activities, prompted them, encouraged them, initiated conversation with them, and made sure they were enjoying themselves. It's totally exhausting, especially when it requires pushing wheelchairs up and down a mountainside all day long or changing a grown man's diaper! But the little moments we have with our campers make it all worth it: when R got up off her wheelchair and walked along the swinging log while we all helped her and cheered her on, when C climbed up the pole on the ropes course when no one else in our group could do it, when K got up in front of everyone and did her Michael Jackson dance with a huge smile on her face, when D got up off his wheelchair onto a horse and lit up every time we called him a cowboy, or when B was able to float in the pool and I saw him get excited for the first time ever. Plus, our campers are hilarious, and laughter is never in short supply! D called me his girlfriend/sweetheart/future wife all week long, B always grabbed my hand while we were walking even though he wasn't my camper, we would always tell R "Don't grind those teeth, buddy" and he'd say "Ok, nope. Not gonna do it no more. Not anymore." and then start grinding them again 3 seconds later, D called himself the ladies man ALL the time, D was usually straight faced until the most random things would make him bust out in laughter, like seeing a cat or a horse or me (haha), C was so quiet and out of nowhere he'd say something like "Well, on February 6, 1902, my grandparents were married.", and R made up funny nicknames for all the counselors and was always cracking sassy jokes all week long. I could go on forever- it honestly feels like my campers are like my kids for the week! They go from names on a piece of paper to people who will always hold a special place in my heart. Although it is a TON of hard work, it is an absolute privilege to get to spend the week with them fishing, canoeing, dancing, climbing the ropes course, playing silly games, making s'mores and singing camp songs around the campfire, swimming, riding horses, getting to know them individually, and building that special bond between camper and counselor. It is so rewarding! I love my job, and I am thrilled that I get to spend all summer working at Camp Kostopulos working with these wonderful people :)