Dear Mom of Camper – They will come home with clean underwear.

It’s true Moms – you can pack those 7 pairs of underwear each in a separate zip lock bag with the outfit your camper is to wear that day and it will most likely come back home in the original packaging.

Isn’t this so nice of them to think of their Moms while away at camp? They don’t want us to have to do laundry when they get back so they just wear the same orange shorts and brown, “life is good” t-shirt all week long interchanged with one bathing suit for swimming in the lake.

True story. Don’t ask me how I know this. (note to in real life readers: please don’t go up to said kid and ask if they’re going to change their underwear at camp this year!)

Sending our kids off to camp is both awesome and scary. Camp has the potential to help our kids grow in some amazing ways. We send our kids to woodlands camp for many different reasons mainly its because we know our kids will have fun, grow and be safe there. So looking back on my years of sending our kids to camp I have a few things to say to new Moms that might be sending their kids off for the first year.

• Don’t expect them to change into clean clothes every day! Prepare yourself for greasy hair and a stench that you paid big money for upon picking him/her up. Just go ahead and get that air freshener hangy-downy thing for your review mirror for the ride home. And expect to find rocks, bugs and somebody else’s t-shirt when unpacking all those clean clothes. Ha! Oh it’s so fun to see the treasures in their bag when they come home. Not to mention the missing towels and other stuff. This is normal. Your kid just aced the Summer Camp final exam. If your kid comes back with ALL dirty clothes, no missing contents and finished reading his/her summer book then there’s a problem.
• Pray for your kids while they’re at camp. For their counselor and their cabin mates. For the speakers. For their friends. That God will use this week of camp to take your child one step deeper in their faith journey as well as other areas. Finding a camp that will help you accomplish these goals is important. There are many great ones out there. Research and talk to other parents.
• Send a care package. Some people go crazy nuts with this and send Christmas in a box to their kids. But it really doesn’t have to be big. Just a simple note or card with candy. My favorite thing to send is practical joke stuff… whoopee cushions, slime, etc. But we’re just a weird family and that kind of stuff rolls with our kids. I send the address of the camp to family members beforehand and they send letters to our kids at camp. They love getting notes from family.
• Don’t let your fears hold them back from going. Maybe you had a bad experience or no experience going to Summer camp and so you haven’t considered camp for your child. I can understand how it would be difficult to trust again after a bad experience. But Summer camp really can be an awesome experience when you find the right one for your child. Consider letting them go and know that God is watching over them the entire time.

Here’s to a happy Summer camp experience! Dirty clothes and all.