So MsA came back on Friday afternoon. I can’t believe how excited I was. I felt tears prickling at my eyes, a few times through out the day and especially when I was driving to the school to pick her up. The last few minutes are always the longest. I spoke to some other mums while waiting for the buses to arrive and they were all in the same state. I think not being able to communicate with the children made it harder. But, I have to say that MsA’s school, kept sending regular updates and that was a relief. And on the first night, we found out that a friend was on parent duty, that put our minds at ease too.
The buses arrived and when the kids started getting off the buses, there were so many smiles and so many tears. I swear, they all looked so grown up suddenly. MsA, hugged me and I didn’t want to let go! She was the one to break the hug, to look for her bag. She went on calmly to look for her bag and then remembered that she had forgotten a bag of wet clothes on the bus. I was just amazed to see this responsible big girl, who remembered everything. Whatever happened to the scatterbrain that used to forget/lose something or the other at school, everyday.
We went to pick up MsAn, straight after and the joy on the sisters’ faces, when they saw each other, was priceless. I had to take photos. MsAn was immediately territorial about her sister- you see, some of her friends wanted a hug too. And she wasn’t going to allow that.
We went out to get hot chocolates and MsA told us camp stories of all the activities they did- they made candles, played games(she described in great detail about some game which involved a Ping-Pong ball and water, but I have forgotten about it), saw reptiles, had a camp-fire, toasted marshmallows and so on. She claims to have tried different foods and loved it. Her favourite part was getting a dessert every night. She woke up at 5 am on the first morning, got in the shower and when she came out, she checked the time to realise that it was too early in the morning. She loved the whole experience but when we were sitting at the dining table for her dinner, her wise words were,” I am happy to have my life back.”
Before leaving for the camp, I had asked her what she wanted for dinner, when she got back and her answer was, “Pizza”. After she came back, I asked her what she wanted for dinner, she replied whatever you cook. I gave her a couple of options and she settled on “Kadhi-rice”
I cannot tell you how happy it made me that she picked home-cooked food instead of a takeaway. The camp has done her well. As I said before, she seems to have grown up overnight. She is also very tired, we stayed in most of today, so she could rest before going back to school, tomorrow.
More later..
T
