Leaving the girls.

Today, Ed and I took Carly and Tanya to camp. We've been packing and talking about it forever. Well, the girls have since last summer when they came home. It's their first week long overnight camp away from us. They will be together so I know they will be fine and have fun. It's just been the longest day and I wanted to share the things that happened today to start me thinking.

I'll get to Tanya in a bit but wanted to say that Eden has had a very difficult time grasping the fact that the girls are gone. We thought we had prepared her by talking about it and the girls even were talking about it. We told her the girls were going to camp and were going to sleep there for a little while and both girls said similar things and even had her help them pack. Eden was in charge of watching certain toys the girls thought she would like to "babysit" while they were away. With all that said driving home we stopped for dinner, which was almost a disaster (so it was a success by any standard with us) It was about an hour after we left and leaving the restaurant she started yelling and pulling at our hands saying, "Don't leave sisters!" I'm not sure if it was a delayed reaction or if she was in her own world when we dropped them off and didn't know where we left them. We have had these issues before with her, where Eden has regressed into herself so much she doesn't know who is around. We could be playing for an hour or sitting together at a table when she is "not there" and after about 1/2 hour or so she'll just look at me, like a light switch has turned on and say, "Oh, Hi Momma!" like I just walked into the room. I hope this week with just her will be a great week and we'll get some great time together and she won't miss her sisters too much.

Ok so for Tanya. Oh boy, I have no idea how she got to be so self criticizing and to take the littlest situation and make a huge issue out of it. Last year at camp, she was not the best swimmer but managed to make one length of the swimming area for her swimming test. This is just a tool for the lifeguards so they can know who to watch for and such, not a big deal right? We knew she was very nervous about this coming to camp, it's the only thing that she has talked about negatively since last year. So this year we thought that it would be a good idea to take her swimming a few times before she went to camp because her skills have grown, she is a pretty good swimmer, and she loves being in the water. She tells everyone that she has large feet because she is a fish and they are flippers and spent 4 hours in the water anytime we are near some.

Taking her to camp this year we thought that we had built up enough of her confidence so she would just go into the water to do her swimming test. The water isn't deep it's about chest high and since it's the second week in July it's not very cold. Tanya barely got off the ladder going into the water got out and grabbed her towel and walked away. When we got to her she was crying and almost hyperventilating. She couldn't tell me why she was scared and I can only assume she was having performance anxiety.

She was devastated, and of course Carly did wonderfully. So we were trying to console one and tell the other one she did well. Ed and I tried our best to calm her down and with all the other kids around her who swam were being congratulated for a great job. She kept crying because I think she really did want to swim. I told her she could try tomorrow and maybe she would have just as much fun in the shallow end swimming (which is where she took her swimming test). Wow, what a downer, I know she can swim and she wants to but I just couldn't will her to do it. It is so very hard for her to get past her brain when it comes to things like that. She said she did the best she could and I believe she actually did, it wasn't the best I knew she could do but it was the best for her in her mind and that's all that really counts.

For example, as much as we tried it took her until she was almost 8 years old to ride a bike (2 years of trying). It wasn't because she couldn't do it or didn't want to do it. She just couldn't get her brain to let go for a second enough for her to take her feet off the ground. When she did, she took right off and never looked back. How do you teach that in a little girl who thrives to be alone? Who thinks no one wants to play with her, but she never even asks for anyone to be her friend? She thinks very low of herself and I want to shake that kid sometimes and tell her that she is a wonderful person and will be a great friend for everyone to have if only she would take the initiative and even if she just plays with kids. We are going to work on self-esteem building and confidence building this summer, but you could think of it two ways either there's a ton of work to be done or we at least have a clean slate to start with.