Day -1: pre-travel stress

Yesterday I picked up Sofia a the camp. When I saw her, my heart ached. She came running to give me a long and strong hug. She had all her belongings with her and has been waiting for more than 1 hr in the basket court. Motherhood gives me so much mixed feeling experiences. When I saw her, first was relief as she was one piece. Then I felt guilty/bad to see her messy hair, dry skin, dry throat, but big smile. Obviously she is not taken care of the same way when she’s at home, as she takes care of herself as the counselors are also teenagers. But I know that’s the whole point of summer camp, that she goes out there alone, to learn to be independent and self sufficient.

On the ride home we chatted for almost 2 hrs with her telling me what they did, their daily routines, her friends, the highlights, what time she wakes up (6:30 but officially gets up at 7pm), what time she goes to bed (7pm with one hour of flash light time), what she ate. As I listened, I can imagine some of the experiences are not as comfortable as at home but she totally didn’t mind, which shows her maturity and focus on the positive things. She was the oldest one in her group (6-8), and some other kids were home sick and wanted to be picked up early. I asked her if she’d have preferred two weeks camp, she said she’s glad to be picked up now, one week. It doesn’t mean she didn’t have fun, but more like she missed her and her sister. She likes the Calleva camp as she can sleep at home and see her family everyday.

Overall, it was the right decision to let her to try the sleep away camp this year. It gave her and us space to appreciate each other more, we both learn she can be self sufficient but no rush to throw her out there as a mini adult before it is needed. I still want her as my little girl for a while longer. When we watched “manifest” at night, I hugged her for a long while, and felt relief that my baby is back. What an emotional rollercoaster this week, something that I kind of expected but not to this intensity.

When we got home around noon, I first finished packing. We have 11 piece of luggage! I know, quite crazy. Then we went to get Sofia’s covid test for the travel, bought some new clothes for her, had the last visit at the french pastry place, and went back home. I was exhausted by 5pm.

My stress level was down to the floor for the last two months, but got up again now that we are about to travel back due to changing policies and restrictions. Although I am 99% sure that me and the girls won’t need hotel quarantine, there’s still 1% chance that we do, so even this morning I was consulting with our HR person what are the chances. So stressful!!! Then there’s the covid test. This morning I woke up at 3am and started thinking what should we do if Sofia has covid while the rest of us do not. Imagine!!! Fortunately 30 min into my crazy thinking, the result came back and negative, so we are okay to travel. Now the only uncertain part is whether we need to do hotel quarantine.

We plan to leave the hotel before 4pm, so today’s plan:

• finish packing
• last visit to the playground with the girls
• do some exercise to calm my nerves
• hope everything goes well during the travel