#3 is my baby. She’s a teenager, but to me, she’s still my baby. 
She got accepted this summer to a very prestigious summer camp for a week. I admit I was nervous. I mean, she has spent the night with friends before and would go to the moon with her best friend’s mom or grandmother (her third set of grandparents), but still they are just down the road a few miles. This trip was 8 hours from home. Dad and I took her over the weekend and dropped her off. She got carsick on the way down. I think just thinking about the trip was making her nervous. We dropped her and a friend off and spent the night in town, “just in case”. She was fine. Making new friends, looking forward to classes. That was Monday. Tuesday she called in tears, wasn’t eating, upset tummy. Today the nurse called. Seems homesickness has set in.
Now every thing I read online says let her work it out. Let her have the accomplishment of doing what she set out to do. The little girl in me remembers my first stay at camp nearly 40 years ago. I had a near fatal case of homesickness. I survived. My mom and dad came to get me at the end of the week and I begged them to let me stay another. I went back the next summer with my best friend and we had a blast! So I sit here with my cell phone, getting nothing accomplished. I am trying to clean house and remind myself that homesickness is horrible, but she is in good hands. I trusted these people enough to send them my most prized possession and that hasn’t changed because she has homesickness. I am just praying this won’t make my already very much a homebody child decide not to go back again next summer.
I guess this answers the question of whether boarding school would work for her. Just hoping she’s over it by the time she’s old enough for college. I want her to explore the world. Sure it’s a scary place, but it’s also a wonderful adventure just waiting for you to join. But she and I have a few years before that happens. By then, my guess is we’ll both be ready. In the meantime, I am going to pray, wait, and hope that all is going well for her. Like child birthing pains, the memory of homesickness often fades leaving behind it fond memories of sleeping away. In the early morning hours, when I can hear traffic on the distant highway, that feeling of homesickness often comes back. I am reminded of that camp experience nearly 40 years ago. But then I remember the fun things we did that summer, like tie dye t-shirts and make candles from scratch and the feeling goes away. I just hope in between feeling sick, she is making such memories…
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