He liked it!
He liked the overnight camp and wants to go back to another one next year. Or maybe even two.
After picking him up I heard endless tales of intrigue. We went and had lunch and he told me stories of good times, stories of bad times, stories of nice kids and stories of mean kids. It was really fun to hear about all of the experiences he had and realize that he now has some real summer camp memories. He was so proud of himself for making it through and seemed to feel really good about himself. He said overall he had a blast.
And, here’s the best part, apparently the cabin that he was staying in was occupied primarily by a very aggressive and foul mouthed group of boys who already knew each other from school and other camps they had been to this summer. They were all nearly literally half of Rye’s size (Rye is very big and tall for his age and these kids were particularly small, it seems) and yet they kept picking on Rye and trying to get him to fight them. In fact one night they threw a full soda can at his head and bruised it just to try and get him to fight. Amazingly though Rye never took the bait and finally told them all that he thought it was a complete joke they wanted to fight him because although they may hit him and hurt him slightly with a punch or two, if he was to hit them he would send them into next week and could really seriously injure them. So he never did fight them. And after a few nights of taking it he told the main counselor that they were driving him nuts with the wanting to fight and the camp director put Rye in a cabin with high school guys for the rest of the week and he liked that much better. He said the high school guys were all really nice and much more mature than the middle school boys and were also physically all his same size as Rye so he didn’t feel like a giant with them.
I can’t tell you how proud I am of him. And how proud he is of himself.
I really think the Depakote combined with the therapy is helping him make much better decisions and live a much richer life. It’s not too long ago that I’m pretty sure confronted with those kids he would have just gone ahead and pummeled them into next week. He would have just reacted to their comments and taunts and not have been able to just let it go and walk away and realize the absurdity of it all.
Progress.
The kid is growing up.
