52 New Things -- Week 29 -- Bedwetting

I want to write about camp, okay? And no, it's not a new thing -- I worked there the whole summer in 2010 -- but I had to change some sheets for the first time ever, so we're gonna go with that as the new thing so I can write about what I want to write about. ;)

Can I just say Paul Newman was a stud? And not in the blue-eyed-movie-star sense, but in the leave-the-world-a-better-place sense. Thousands of kids with cancer, sickle cell disease, metabolic issues, HIV, and other illnesses get to spend a week or a weekend at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp every year to forget about hospitals and (in Newman's words) raise a little hell. For a short amount of time, they get to be like any other kid. I wish more of the rich and famous would follow his lead; twenty-five years after founding the camp and five years after his death, camper after camper after camper reaps the benefit of the legacy he left behind.

I drove out Friday and Saturday and the kids arrived Sunday. We had an absolutely fabulous week fishing, riding horses, swimming, singing, dancing, and more. There were six little girls in our cabin, all with sickle cell disease. Before I worked at camp, I didn't know anything about sickle, like the fact that kids with sickle often get cold . . . which means kids with sickle rarely go swimming in the summer because pool water is too cold. The Hole in the Wall's pool? A toasty 89 degrees. The kids were in heaven.

The second to last night at camp was rough. I'd already been woken up twice by two girls needing help; I finally drifted back to sleep and was dreaming the girls were up at 5:30am and I was instructing them to go back to sleep when a little hand patted my shoulder.

"Do you know where my cheetah print shorts are?" a little voice asked.

"Go back to sleep, honey," I mumbled. "We'll find them in the morning."

I heard her rustling around in her trunk, then creep out of the room toward the bathroom. Only then did I groggily realize she'd probably wet the bed. I hurried after her and found her getting out a washcloth and a bar of soap.

"Did you have an accident?" I asked. When she nodded, I told her to go ahead and clean herself up while I put new sheets on the bed. I managed to get the bed changed and her back into it without waking up any of the other girls.

I will be a horrible mother someday. They will puke, pee, wail . . . and I will sleep through it all.

All six of our girls were great, and the boys in the cabin next door were a mix of adorable and hellish. It's the kind of thing where you're super excited at the start of the week, exhausted and unsure you can finish strong toward the end of the week, and sad to see them go on the last day.

My overall feeling all week was gratefulness . . . gratefulness for a place where kids feel safe and loved and normal and awesome for a brief moment . . . gratefulness for the college-kid counselors who choose low pay and lots of love over internships . . . gratefulness for people with money who contribute the millions of dollars it takes to let every kid experience camp absolutely free . . . and gratefulness that I get to be a part of it.

Here's a quick three-minute slideshow that gives you a glimpse into a week in the life of a camper -- totally fun!! And no, I'm not in it . . . but when you see a feisty-looking little guy blasting someone with a super-soaker in the pool, guess who was on the receiving end? This girl. And I couldn't be more grateful.