My AS son and his twin are Webelos in scouts. We were on vacation the last two weeks, so they missed going to twilight camp with our pack. Their friend's Mom leads another pack with a lot of boys from their school. This friend has ADHD and is very quirky himself, so his Mom can handle my son pretty well. This Mom takes her pack to Webelo resident camp instead of just a twilight camp. It is for 3 nights and she agreed to let my boys join them. I was unable to go this week and help as I am a volunteer at my daughter's Girl Scout Day camp this week and my husband had to return to work after 2 weeks away. He could not get away this week. However, she felt like it would be okay. I have been hopeful and worried about how this would go.
I took them up Sunday afternoon. We camp about 1-2 times year as a family and the last two times, the older boys have stayed in a tent alone, next to us, so I felt they would be fine camping. I was only worried about the social aspects as one boy in their pack from school does not like him much, but he is mostly a know it all kid and his Dad was on this camping trip too, so the boy seems to keep pretty quiet when his Dad isn't around.
Monday morning, my friend calls me and says they had a rough night with my son. I guess at dinner that night the director said that scorpions had been seen around more this year and to remember to shake their shoes before putting them on. Well, that set my son off for a night of obsessing over scorpions. He was convinced he could hear them under their tent platform all night. He kept his twin up in their tent all night and only slept in 45 minute intervals and woke her up all night. She was exhausted. I felt terrible. For her, for my son, for the whole situation. He had a similar issue several years ago when he learned about leeches and he obsessed about them for awhile. Mostly at night. He had to close his bathroom door at night because he couldn't sleep for thinking they were going to come out of the sink drain. No matter how much logic and information we gave him, it just had to play itself out. It was about 2 years before he got over it. Out of all the problems I anticipated, this wasn't one of them.
She said he had a rough morning after that and was letting me know I might need to come get him. We gave it the rest of the day and that evening, she called and said he had had a good day after that and if I was okay with her calling me in the middle of the night to come get him, she thought we should let him stay. I talked to him after that. He was so excited about everything they had done that day and I could barely get him to focus on the scorpion issue. He really did not want to leave. We talked about what he could do to help him and stay. He swore he could handle this. I had my doubts, but told him we were trying it with the caveat I was going to have to come up if he couldn't sleep again. I then prayed very hard for my son as he so hates to not be a part of things. I could handle going to get him, but I knew he was going to be very upset if it came to that.
Later, the camp director called me and told me he was making up a soapy spray to put around my son's tent and told my son it would help keep the scorpions away. He said it wasn't a total fib, but that the smell of soap did seem to deter them to a degree, but it was mostly to rest my son's mind. I didn't sleep well last night, expecting a call. However, I never got a call. I texted her this morning and she said they had no problems last night. She said it was funny, my son told her he saw me last night and I came and checked on him. I am not sure if that was a good dream or a nightmare for him. LOL I texted again a couple of hours ago and she said everything was great. He has to sleep again tonight and then they have to have breakfast, tear down camp and my husband picks him up tomorrow morning.
He has almost made it! I am so grateful for a good friend and the director that went out of their way to help my son stay at camp.
19 Jun 2012, 7:40 pm
I'm afraid I would have been there to pick him up at the first sign of trouble if it were me. I am SOOO worried about inconveniencing other people. What a great friend and awesome counselor! Hope you all have a great summer.
