Camp Ling – We Make You Beg for Mercy!

Well!  It’s the summertime and that means….it’s time for me to start my summer camp for my kids.  And this year, we’ve decided upon the following theme:

Camp Ling!  We make you BEG for mercy!

This is the 4th year of Camp Ling and let me tell you, I’ve concocted the ultimate of summertime joys for my children (if you consider being pushed to the limits of your very being a joy)!  Every day we do physical fitness, math, karate, World of Warcraft, reading, writing and the like…but we take it to the nth degree.

Take this morning!   I walked with my kids to the local park that has not only massive amounts of honeysuckle bushes (ever retrieve the nectar from honeysuckle flowers?  I remember doing that when I was a single-digit young lass, and it’s still just as yummy today!), but also a Little League baseball diamond too! 

Now, keep in mind one of our Camp Ling goals.  "Pain is fun!" is our motto; anything that pushes us past what mere mortal beings can achieve is a Good Thing.  Thus, my eldest decided to rather unwisely challenge me to a 6 lap jog around the baseball diamond. 

"C’mon Mom, are you a wimp?" she gravely asked. 

I must pause here, gentle reader, and explain the following.  I pride myself on possessing insane endurance capabilities; for example, I’m one of the 2 karate moms who also spars in the adult class at our local dojo (and gets regularly knocked off her feet only to bounce back up and demand more!). 

What’s that I hear you ask?  Sparring and self-defense?  Why of course…and Monty Python says it best!

But I digress.  🙂

So far, I have yet to beg for mercy in any sports/martial arts endeavor…

And I want to give that gift to my kids.

So!  I’m willing to be flung about the room, trounced on, rolled over, pummeled into the ground, etc., if it inspires my kids to tackle life in the same fashion.  They enjoy seeing Mom get pushed into realms sane individuals never venture!

And that, of course, includes seeing if I’ll ever collapse from sheer mental/physical exhaustion.

With that as a background, how on earth could I refuse such a challenge?  Hence, it came to pass that all my kids and I jogged the 6 laps (with Mom racing faster than a comatose starfish, but hey, I was still moving!)… and then I pushed myself to complete an extra 4.

End result?  My kids got in the exercise I wanted them to have….plus also saw their Mother Unit excel past the original goals.

Let me tell you, it was AGONY! indeed.  But I hid that (rather well, I must say) and the kids were awestruck that Golly, Mom kept going…I bet I could do that the next time!

After our jog, we picked raspberries from the bushes along the street, and crawled whimperingly boldly strode home.  It was character-building with a Capital K!

Camp Ling consists of other maniacal endeavors besides mere bashing the body, of course.  I started my kids on World of Warcraft and they haven’t looked back – every night, they write down their strategies and goals for the next day and then try to achieve them upon waking up.  There’s lots of WoW sites online as well, so I’ll be devising some "search and uncover" games for them to sharpen their Internet researching skills as well.

I also have to get the Math, Latin and Japanese components moving along!   Math because, well, life IS math, Latin because one cannot know too much Latin in this life, and Japanese because, well, we need to learn the terms for karate.

To say we have full days…is to say quite the understatement indeed.  🙂

So remember, if you ever want your kids to have a summer they won’t forget (or want to repeat, or want to endure, or …), send ’em to Camp Ling!  After all…

We Make You Beg For Mercy!

🙂

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

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ps – and speaking about summer fun, need a cost-conscious new swimsuit?