This week has been quite long if you ask me. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re coming off a very short holiday week or because I’ve felt stressed – but I made it through. I absolutely love coming to work every day and seeing all the smiling faces at camp and I believe that the children are really what helped me make it through the week without too much chaos. This week, I don’t think there’s any lesson I’ve learned that is more important than the simple fact that sometimes the smallest things are what help you get through a tough day or week. I want to share some of the stories that helped me do exactly that this week. (I will be posting children’s names with initials only for privacy reasons).

M* is an amazing little boy who I’ve become great friends with this summer. He’s fresh out of kindergarten and quite the character. When we first met at camp, he would cry for quite some time because he missed his mom after she dropped him off. It was heartbreaking and I would get frustrated with myself for not knowing the best way to help him. Fast forward to today, M runs to the camp doors and excitedly greets me when we see each other every day. When I walked in Monday, M told me that during his holiday weekend, he biked across the country and back. While I’m not sure that a 5 year old biked across the entire United States and back in 5 days, I loved to hear his story about it.

Kids really say the strangest things and I’m not sure if I’m just super gullible, or these kids are really doing the unbelievable. Another boy, A* told other camp counselors and myself that he personally took down a king cobra. At first this honestly didn’t seem far fetched. It wasn’t until he said that he charmed the snake with a saxophone that I really started to question his story.

Three of my favorite campers, all sisters, returned to camp this week after not being back since last summer’s camp. These little girls are the most hilarious, sassy, friendly sisters I have ever met. The youngest, N, calls me “Ms. Melly” because she can’t yet say Mary correctly. Hearing her say “Ms. Melly Ms. Melly look at this!!” during crafts and games all week has been a reminder of how much I love being at camp.

My favorite story of the week involves two campers; one a 2nd grader and one a teen intern. The teen intern, who I know from last summer when he was in my middle school group, loves to roast me whenever he gets the chance. Since I know him, I know it’s all fun and I often roast him too. These things happen typically in competitive games like dodgeball or basketball. One day during basketball, I lost to a younger camper in basketball (on purpose obviously?). The teen intern said “oooh Ms. Mary you’re bad!” as a joke but G*, the 2nd grader heard it and didn’t know it was a joke. G came up to me and whispered “Ms. Mary don’t listen to him. You’re the most strongest woman in the world.”

These are only a few of the stories of everything kids have said this week that made the stressful week so much better. Stories don’t have to be profound or thought provoking to make an impact on you. Sometimes it really is the smaller, light-hearted things that matter the most.