So you may have noticed I wasn’t a stellar blogger last week, but boy howdy, was I busy. Try to imagine that your friend who is a medical doctor asks you to “substitute” for him at work the day he’s supposed to perform surgery. That’s what it’s like when you get called as a counselor in the Stake YW presidency one month before Girls Camp (and the new president will be out of town for the month). So last week I spent two and a half days at Girl’s Camp and I learned a few more things about myself.
- Girls obsess about boys as much as I obsess about sleep. (Oh, the part I learned about myself is that I’m annoyed by that… the boy part, definitely not the sleep part.)
- When I went to Girls Camp as a youth, we loved singing all kinds of silly songs over and over again wherever we went. This trend is apparently still in force, but now as an old and incredibly wise adult, I realize that many of those songs are really kind of inappropriate. Heck, some of them are even anthems of boy-mongering. Again, annoyed. (Are you noticing a trend?) My friend Shantel and I tried to come up with some counter-culture camp songs ourselves like “Boys are stupid until you’re twenty. (and while marching…) Stand for Truth and Righteousness!” Not a big hit. Can’t imagine why.
- I had to teach a fireside at camp and even though I thought I had prepared with many weeks of pondering, when I sat down to put my notes together a mere hour or so before the presentation, I had some severe writer’s block. Just a little testimonial: Prayer works.
- When girls go to Girls Camp and decide to sleep as little as possible, they get to go home and recover. When women go to Girls Camp and are victims of as little sleep as possible, they get to go home and immediately pick up their regular duties on overtime. The trend continues: Annoying.
- I thought the girls might be annoying. I was wrong. I loved them, and I looked forward to spending more time with them.
- Glitter lip gloss does not look good on grown women.
Today I had to return the large speaker system podium that we borrowed for camp to the church building. When I arrived and got out of the car, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. I bent over and heaved up the podium to carry it in the building, and –um– apparently something about that bending, lifting and heaving stretched the limits of my bladder control. I went home a little damper than I arrived, which is simply God’s way of reminding me that I’m not nearly as young or cool as I think I am.
So, learned any fun lessons about yourself lately?
Diapers and Divinity 
I love you. I have peed my pants as an adult too. Did you have to do the cornrows in your hair?
Oh, you are a better woman than I … For one, I will probably never be called to YW, stake or otherwise, and for two, I probably would have been yelling about needing sleep and boys are idiots until much later than 20, so they might as well all give up and become old maids (which, in Utah, is only 21 or 22 …).
Something about having babies makes us lose all bladder control, especially when moving heavy things. Or 25-pound one-year-olds.
Thanks for the morning laugh. I peed my pants while a youth at girls camp, so I got started a little earlier! This posts reminds me why I am grateful not to be serving in YW–the one calling I would never want!
Bless you for putting up with Girls Camp. I have a new respect for all YW leaders since having a new Young Woman in my home. Anyone who isn’t related to her, and puts up with her longer than an hour a week is a noble, blessed servant of God, for sure.
That peeing your pants thing made me laugh way too hard. Good thing I just went to the bathroom, or I’d be changing my clothes this minute.
I can’t sneeze when I’m laughing really hard. That’s bad.
I’m reading your post and nearly wetting my pants in the process.
First of all: hello again, no, I didn’t drop off the face of the blog earth, and I’ve missed so many posts that I can’t even begin to catch up. BUT… I’m so glad I logged on this morning. This post is exactly what I needed to hear to cheer me up because I just discovered this weekend that I won’t be able to go to our stake camp this year and my heart is BREAKING…. but reading over your list reassures me that it’s okay to miss a year now and then! All those annoying little things haven’t bothered me for a few years because I’ve been camping with the stake adults, but this year they were going to put me with a cabin of girls. As much as I was looking forward to be back on the ‘front lines’, I wasn’t looking forward to a week of prank-filled, sleepless nights! Alas, I get to send my girls on their own this year, and we’ll see how they survive without me! (Boo, hoo, hoo…)
I apologize for giggling but I just can’t help it! Hee hee!
Wow, what a huge job STAKE girls camp is and you got called a month before????? Mercy, your SP must really want to get his house toilet papered or something.
Sounds like you were perfect even though you tried the glitter lip gloss and had an accident returning the podium.
Love your blog!
After five babies, I don’t jump on trampolines anymore. Dangerous.
Brooklyn is teaching all the songs to Ella and she is eating it up. I really loved camp. I really love the girls.
Camp is like a temple experience for them. and for me.
That is my testimony of it.
You are so funny! I loved reading your take on girls camp. I have often wondered if I would enjoy it as an adult. I recently chaperoned a youth dance for the first time in 8 years. Quite a shocker. First, most of the music I didn’t recognize. I realized I might be a little un-cool since most my music is produced by Deseret’s music label. Then the dances. The little fun dances everyone does together. No longer ones I know. It was an interesting experience to say the least.
I had fun but came home wanting to surf my itunes a bit more, wear cuter clothes, and stay away from many trends like skinny jeans and glitter lip gloss. wait I think I have some in my makeup kit. 🙂
Thanks for the humor today!
My daughter is going to Girls’ Camp for the 1st time this year. I better give her a crash course in appropriately silly camp songs. I hope she has fun annoying all the leaders.
Also, I will be reminding myself how uncool I am so God doesn’t feel fit to send me a damp reminder of the fact.
Thanks for your take on Girls Camp. One calling, well lets say. . .I covet to attend, and I guess with that covetness will never get too. Oh well. I loved this post. The part about the girls still being “boy crazy” and us adults talking about sleep is soooo true.
I love having only 2 teenage girls–that women like yourself put up with for a week–I can only imagine what it was like to have 100times more than that .
Thanks again for the insight–I now know that I can sleep much better knowing that someday these 2 of mine will be thinking more about sleep than boys and with some patience may be able to handle the 2 I have at home.
The only time I like camp is when my kids go without me.
I need no reminders of how uncool I am. Simply existing is reminder enough. (and finding out that I went to the theater [or the youth activity, or the wedding reception, or church] not as prepared with an ample supply of feminine hygiene products as I thought I was. I still have learned nothing from those many experiences. Or I forget to refill my purse. Of course when I AM prepared, I will need the use of a pen and root around in my purse and pull out something that is actually NOT a pen in front of some male-type person who I consider myself inferior to)
😆
I went to girls camp too and feel the same way (particularly about the girls-recover/moms-suffer concept). So, does this mean you’re out of the primary?
I just went to girls camp a couple weeks ago! It was a lot of fun, but I realized I was not the cool girl in camp…I was one of those pesky leaders that the girls didn’t want to spend any time with. 😦 And when we returned home I saw one of my girls made a comment on FB about how being “single” stinks. This girl is 13, and so I jokingly/seriously said something to her, and she rolled her eyes at me like I didn’t have a clue! It really wasn’t all that long ago that I was there. Oh well! I love the YW in my ward.
Despite the fact that I hated YW when I was actually a YW, I really enjoy being in there as an adult. (Which is why I am currently in nursery.) BUT- I haven’t ever had to go to camp with them… that might be another story.
I would really love to track down all my YW leaders and personally apologize for all the crazy/stupid things I did. And while I’m at it, I should probably pay a visit to the Seminary instructor, too. 😉