Summer Camp 2012

As of Friday, Rex has completed two weeks of day camp at his preschool. We were using camp as a transition to get him familiar with the classroom, the approximate daily routines, the teacher-therapists, the pools, the playgrounds, and the other kids.  He really did very well while at camp and had some wonderful opportunities for learning.  Outside of the daily swims and crafts and circle times, a visit from the zoo with animals allowed Rex to pet a colorful bird.  He was able to touch a real life digger and a snow plow.  And he met his first fireman, too.

As a mother, it felt quite surreal to me to be opening up my son’s backpack at night and pulling out little projects and teacher’s notes.  These were the first ever:

Even though Rex handled his time at camp very well, we did see him struggle with processing the changes at home.  As we expected, there have been some behavioral regressions in regard to throwing tantrums and auto-aggression.  Fortunately, it’s all been very manageable, but it’s still tough to see your child go back to something you thought he had overcome.  We are confident that once Rex finds his new groove in the school year, he will not feel the need for his old familiar patterns of handling frustrations, anger, anxiety, and overstimulation anymore.

Rex has also been very clingy to Craig and needed much physical and verbal reassurance from us, so we have been cuddling for hours and talking about families and home and how we will always be together.  We have repeated many times over that Rex is our son forever and that we love him and that we will always come back for him.  We have also allowed Rex to sleep in our bed for a few nights again which seemed to help a lot.  Once we decided to do so, we saw an immediate difference in his morning mood and cooperation with getting ready for camp.  As the camp days went on, Rex also came home with a better attitude and less need for sensory regulation.  He is truly a resilient child and quite adaptable.  My baby boy is growing up.

Now we have two more weeks at home before the start of school on September 4.