I’ve decided I will not be discussing AG’s Outdoor Lab trip in December (DECEMBER) with any other local parents until I absolutely have to. In fact, Mr. Asthma Mom may end up attending the first informational parent meeting by himself this Thursday night so I can continue avoiding the conversations that include alarming statements like these:
Wow! December? They’re gonna freeze up there!
Which, okay. I’ve said myself. But I can pin my neurotic tendencies on the overprotective mothering gene that kicks in sometimes. When they say it, and by “they” I mean parents whose kids get to attend Outdoor Lab in much-warmer-and-not-at-all-scary fall, my brain defaults to grim visions of frostbite and lost children – specifically, my child, who is directionless like her mother – wandering around the side of a snowy mountain.
Can you believe our kids are going so late in the year? My friend had to drive up and go get her daughter when she went in December a few years ago because the kids got snowed in up there.
Seriously? I was worried about my kid getting cold, not ending up stuck with her friends in the Rockies during a blizzard and waiting for the snow to melt before they can come home.
They’re going so close to Christmas! You better hope they don’t pass around the flu or anything while they’re up there. That would ruin the holidays.
THANK YOU EVERYONE, THAT’S VERY HELPFUL. PLEASE STOP TALKING NOW.
Dear God, it’s like listening to other moms’ traumatic birth stories when you’re pregnant
I know she’ll be fine. I know the county runs Outdoor Lab every single year, and it’s a wonderful and perfectly safe experience for the kids. Further, I know that if it weren’t my daughter’s school going in December, it would be someone else’s.
I know all that, and I know this kind of trip instills confidence and independence in kids, that she will love a week away from her family with all her friends, that we are lucky she gets to experience it, and that she will remember Outdoor Lab for the rest of her life. I’m excited for her, in fact.
And I think I can even manage to stay that way over the next several months.
Just as long as I stop talking to people here about it.
Seriously, they will be FINE. Like you said, they do this every year. As long as you go prepared and know what you’re doing, winter is nothing to be scared of. AG will have so much fun! I’m pumped to hear about it.
can you offer to chaperon? (really, that word doesn’t have an ‘e’ on it…it looks so wrong) When M is old enough to go to overnight camp, I’m totally volunteering to be a counselor-for a different program…just so that I will be on-site.
She WILL be fine. We did something very similar, in the winter…we even slept in igloos…it was a ton of fun!
Danielle–One thing I LOVE: the kids can’t bring any electronics with them. No DS, no iPod, etc.
Sara–No, parents can’t chaperone. (It DOES look weird. I refuse!) I wouldn’t, anyway, because AG wouldn’t want me to. We can’t talk to the kids on the phone while they’re gone, either, because they don’t a bunch of kids who are otherwise fine and having fun to get homesick when they talk to their parents. That’s the hard part. I understand the reasoning behind it, though.
One thing I have to find out is if I can call to make sure she’s doing her maintenance inhaler. Even if I can’t talk to her, I need to make sure it’s getting done.
We have the meeting at the school this week and then an open house up at the site in the mountains in September. So I’ll know more about the whole thing soon.
when I chaperon, I’ll likely not even SEE M, except at mealtimes. unless things drastically change (and who knows, they might) we’ve had to go to the ER too many times for me to be comfortable with her being over an hour away..it’s one thing if she’s with family, another totally to be at camp with virtual strangers.
It’s obviously something that can be re-visited when she’s actually old enough to go.
I’ll bet there is a nurse that will be going (or is employed by the outdoor lab) who will be in charge of all medications. I can guarantee that AG isn’t the only one on daily meds.
No, you’re right. It’s a tiny school–only 2 sixth grade classes, total–but a couple of other kids take stuff.
Actually, Outdoor Lab even has handicapped facilities and that’s very reassuring. If they can handle wheelchairs, they can handle asthma, you know?