Today was the Monster’s first day of camp.
He’s used to riding the bus – he’s done so all year to school, and the drive to camp is about the same time (perhaps a little longer). This will be the first time he’s gone all day to camp on a five-day-a-week basis, and the first time he’s riding a real school bus without a five-point harness. Continue reading
Camp is coming up for the Monster in the very near future.
The last few years, we’ve sent the Monster to part-day summer camps – last summer, as I talked about frequently, was a combination of a special needs camp and a JCC day-camp. The year prior, he went a few mornings a week to said day-camp at the JCC. This summer, he’s going full-time to the all-day day camp run by the JCC. Continue reading
We’re sending the Monster to summer camp again this year.
Last year, his summer was divided between the camp at the JCC – trying to give him at least a little bit of a ‘normal’ Jewish environment – and a speech/language program run by Towson University. This meant running different directions on different days, but it was good for him and kept him occupied in the mornings. Continue reading
Next week’s the last week of summer camp for the Monster – then two weeks of ‘nothing’ before he starts his first year of public school.
We made the decision last week to not expand his ‘normal’ day camp from two days per week to five for the remaining weeks of the summer – it didn’t seem cost-effective for the six additional days of camp. Instead, the wife’s suggested the idea of putting him into swim classes for the remaining weeks, since the JCC offers small-group instruction five days a week for the two remaining weeks. Continue reading
So we’re into the four weeks before school where everything’s going to keep changing for the Monster.
I suppose my biggest concern coming into the summer was going to be the fact that his schedule wasn’t going to be a constant. Consistency is important when it comes to his schedule, and we’re just not able to give him that this year, with the programs all having different start and end dates. Continue reading
Today was the last day of one of the Monster’s day camps.
We were fortunate to find out about a speech and language camp run by a local university, and had the Monster there three days a week in a program that gives him at least some social exposure to other children as well as therapy sessions that our insurance will cover. Unfortunately, because it is staffed by students from that same university, it’s not a whole-summer program – it ran only six weeks, and ended today, four weeks shy of the start of school. Continue reading
Now that I’m back from my business trip, we’re getting into our summer schedule with the Monster.
Because we weren’t given ESY, we’ve arranged for some summer therapy to take the place of what the city should be offering. Fortunately, my company gives us excellent insurance and it covers enough speech and OT that I don’t have to shell out much from my own pocket. (That said, I’ll actually be hitting my out-of-pocket maximum this year anyway, much of that due to the birth of child #2… but it’s encouragement to see if another plan would suit us better.) To ensure that he gets everything he needs and appropriate social interactions, this is going to entail a lot of running around. Continue reading
The Monster’s school year ends a week from Friday. After a week off (and believe you me, I’m not at all sure why there’s a week off), he’ll start two different morning-only camps – one that runs Monday-Wednesday-Friday for six weeks, and one that’s Tuesday-Thursday for eight.
For the last two years, we’ve sent him to the JCC summer camp. The first year was to give him a good introduction to pre-school – he was going to be transitioning to their program there and at the time, we didn’t really have an inkling of what was going on – and the second was to keep things ‘constant’ between the two years of pre-school. He needs more than just ‘play in the pool and sun’ time, though, so this year’s going to mark a real change for him. Continue reading