She's back & you never knew she was gone

A couple of weeks ago Katie went on her first independent adventure, away from home, along with her teachers & classmates. She went to Astrocamp, an astronomy & science camp in the mountains of Idyllwild, California. The trip lasted from early on a Wednesday morning through early on a Friday evening. It was not a long trip, but long enough for an almost 9-year-old to be alone and away from her home and family for the first time. Her first night away, she called home feeling a little lonely and a little sad and a little frightened about going to bed in strange surroundings, without her mom by her side to say a goodnight prayer with her.

Katie is my homebody. When faced with the choice of staying or going out somewhere, Katie chooses home. Most of the time she prefers to have friends come play at her house, and she has had no interest in sleepovers until just the last few months. So - this was a big step for Katie, and I am glad she had the courage to take this leap. She survived that first night & ended up having such a great time. She got to go on a zip line & went on something called the sky coaster, which was her favorite activity (and which I can tell you absolutely nothing about because I don't really get what it is.) Katie bonded with her teachers & friends & made lasting memories. She also found out that she can do things all on her own when she has to. Maybe my homebody will want to go out on her own a little more after this experience.

While Katie was gone, I was reminded of how much different things are and how much easier things seem to be when just one child is gone for a while. I find this concept a little fascinating, because it doesn't matter how many children I have, when just one is missing, I think my life is so much easier. It shows how our perspective changes, because when I had 2 kids, I could have never imagined having 4, and everything seemed so much easier if 1 was gone. Now that I have 4 kids, 3 seems so easy. I wonder if my sister, Janae, having 5 kids, thinks 4 is easy?! Strange how that works! I certainly missed Katie, but when one sibling is gone, the dynamics in the house change so much. Things are quieter & there is so much less contention. Aside from that, there was also an empty spot around here and I was so glad to have that spot filled when she returned home.

PS - a little more news about Katie, which has absolutely nothing to do with Astrocamp . . . on Saturday she scored her first goal in soccer! She was so excited! I was very disappointed that I missed it because I was with Lacey (who had a soccer game that overlapped with Katie's game). So - when Lacey and I got to Katie's game, we had to hear the new from everyone else that Katie scored a goal. She almost got to score 2 goals, another narrowly missed the goal - maybe next game . . .