Next week’s the last week of summer camp for the Monster – then two weeks of ‘nothing’ before he starts his first year of public school.

We made the decision last week to not expand his ‘normal’ day camp from two days per week to five for the remaining weeks of the summer – it didn’t seem cost-effective for the six additional days of camp.  Instead, the wife’s suggested the idea of putting him into swim classes for the remaining weeks, since the JCC offers small-group instruction five days a week for the two remaining weeks.

To me, this is a great idea – the Monster nominally loves the pool and this means he gets to go swimming every day for two weeks, even if it’s only for 40 minutes.  It’s unfortunately too early for it to then overrun into a full-blown ‘spend the afternoon at the pool’ experience, since the J’s pool doesn’t open fully until noonish, as I recall, but still, it’s something he can enjoy and have as a regular schedule.

On the other hand, having camp only two days a week, and only one of those involving swimming makes things… interesting.

The Monster does well when there’s an established pattern to things.  At this point of the summer, nothing feels established because his schedule each day is different, so we’re dealing with the random tantrums related to the process not moving as expected.  Case in point: this morning, I went in to get him ready for camp, which involved getting his swimming gear on.  (They head straight to the pool after camp starts on Thursdays.)  And we had a huge, random freak-out about it – he screamed a bit about not putting on the swim-diaper, managed to quiet down while I got him into that and his swimsuit, and then went nuclear when I put on his rashguard, to the point that he didn’t want his glasses on.  I’m assuming the wife got him into his aquasocks and glasses after I left the house… but I still don’t know why he was freaking out about getting ready for the pool.

Granted… there’s been more than a few occasions of late where he’s insisted ‘no pool’ or ‘no swimming’.  I’m not quite sure what the change is, since he’s always loved going to the pool, and he doesn’t necessarily have the words to tell us why he doesn’t want to go swimming.  Heaven knows I wish he had a way to tell us…

Hopefully, with a return to a schedule the week after next, these freak-outs will be reduced…