It’s only January, and most people I know (it feels like I only know people with kids now!) have already started discussing their summer plans, especially which camps they’re going to send their children to.
When did summer with school-age children become such a hassle?
Well, there are so many summer camps to choose from, and supposedly good (and not so expensive) ones, that open their registrations in late January or early February. If you don’t sign up as soon as their registration opens, your kid might not get a spot.
And for us, camp grandparents aren’t an option because they are so far away.
In short, we also plan our summer in January.
This early planning is a problem for us, as my husband is a spontaneous person who dislikes planning our summer in January. Even though he still complains, he has accepted (learnt the hard way, Hint, it gets very expensive!) that we can’t be spontaneous with summer anymore.
This is me talking, after having three children aged nine, six, and three.
Summer Camps: How did I get here?
Before I had any children, I watched people sending their kids to summer camps, thinking, “When I have kids, I will spend ALL my summer breaks traveling and doing fun things with them.”
What a wishful thinking! And how incredibly judgmental I was!
When I had my first two children, summer camps were never about me needing a break from my children; they were all about my desire to enrich my children’s lives and searching for potential: “Wow, she might like ballet. Gotta sign her up for a week.”
When my third child came along, I barely had any sleep. I was exhausted! I sent my middle child to camps as soon as he was age-eligible, along with his older sister. I first sent the children to the camps of their liking. That’s at least how it started. The logistics of taking different kids to different places, while caring for an infant, were overwhelming. I’ve learned to accept that they had to go to the same camps at the same time.
After nine years in this motherhood journey, look at what I’m doing now. I plan our summer vacation early in January so I can map out the children’s summer camp plans and sign them up as soon as registrations open. Camps that both of my children can agree on going to together.
I feel like a master!
It costs an arm and a leg to send two kids to camp each week (my youngest isn’t old enough to go to any camps yet). I can’t imagine the fortune we will spend on camps when my third child is eligible — I don’t even think we can afford it. Maybe I should alternate the children to see which one gets to go to which camp and which week, but then I will always have someone home, defeating the purpose of having a break from the children. Or maybe I should find some affordable camps to send all the children instead of the ones they prefer.
This is going to be the headache for next year, not now!
Sticky Situations
It pains me financially to spend so much money on summer camps when I have the time to keep them at home. But do I still want to spend the whole summer break with all my children, as I thought before I had any children?
I laughed at this thought! It is a big NO.
It doesn’t matter how “good” I am at managing them (this is a biased statement from my husband) or how much I love them; it is so draining to have all three of them together for an extended period. Perhaps you have better children and don’t experience sibling rivalries as much as I do. My children start to pick on one another when they have to be together for a while. They were all home for a week during winter break, and by the fifth day, they had grown so irritated with one another, and so had I.
The children need a break from being together, and so do I. Summer break is more than two months long, I don’t think we can power through it.
Summer camps have become a necessity for my family’s well-being.
Back to signing kids up for summer camps. I have to tell you, some of the registrations are like a sport. On top of having to be able to afford the camps (I make my husband responsible for this part), you have to be prepared (have all your log-ins and info ready, know what you want to sign your child up for), be on time (be online at the exact moment they open their registrations) and be strategic on how to process your registrations.
I signed up one of my kids for this popular camp for the first time last year. People had given me a heads up on how fast spots could go, so the night before registration day, I opened an account, practiced logging in and out, and made sure I knew where to go to sign up for the session I wanted. That night, I felt prepared, ready, and a bit proud of myself for being so thorough.
I got this!
Registration opened at 10:00 a.m., so I made sure to log in at 9:58 a.m., in case a large number of people tried to log in at the same time. The registration did open at exactly 10:00 a.m. — I smiled. Everything went smoothly until I reached the “Agreements” section, where numerous pages filled with dense text needed to be read through before signing. As a first-timer at this camp, I couldn’t allow myself to click on “Agree” on everything just to move forward. I had to take my time to read them (it’s my child’s life at risk here!).
My brain started racing, worrying that it might take me too long to complete this registration.
I finally processed my payment at around 10:04 a.m. It took the website a few minutes to process, and then I received their message: “Registration was not successful, as all of the requested sessions are now full. You were not charged for any sessions and were automatically added to the waitlist” at 10:06 a.m.
Wow, six damn stressful minutes and I got nothing! I was indeed too slow!
I was furious but determined to get in, well, likely because I had been rejected…
I signed up my second child for the same camp the following day, as they were in different age groups, and it took me only about a minute to complete the whole process. How did I register my second child so fast? You could probably guess it; I already knew where to look for important information and skipped reading almost everything since they were just the same form. I raced through the process.
I used up all of my adrenaline to get this kid in… One long minute!
If you want to know, my first child did get a spot after being on the waitlist for a few months.
Summer is coming: Fingers crossed
The summer camp registration process is ridiculous, but it gives me a strange sense of accomplishment after I complete it. I feel silly and proud at the same time.
Anyhow, wish me luck, everyone! I’ve got all summer camps sorted out. I might have overspent on summer camps (Oops!) since I was in such a rush signing up my kids, thinking I was smart by registering early for early-bird discounts, and making sure my children had places to go in the summer.
At least it feels good not to have to worry about summer camp registrations anymore, till next year!
Good luck with summer, everyone!