Maizy Laughing

The title basically says it all.  Maizy discovered she could press the arrow keys while Skyping with Grandma and Grandpa to make a noise; hilarity ensued.  Check it out on Facebook.

Hershey Park!

On Monday, the whole camp took a trip to Hershey Park.  Maizy had never been to such a place!  There was way too much going on for her to take a much-needed nap, so we definitely had some cranky moments, but what an awesome time!  Maizy rode rides like a champ, and after each one the attendant would ask us, "Didn't she like it?" because of Maizy's howling.  "She loved it!  She's upset because it ended!" we would reply.  One attendant was nice enough to let her stay on for a second immediate ride!  

Here are some pictures.

Marc and I in our Shabbat Whites

Maizy can go on the rides for Miniatures.

What is going on here?

Maybe I'm a little racecar driver!

Ah, this helicopter is much more my style!

A Fun Mall Store

Marc and I took Maizy to Hagerstown Mall today.  It is a very small mall, and since it was over a hundred degrees on a Saturday, we thought it would be packed.  Not even a little bit.  We decided to check out this store that rents out inflatables.  We bought Maizy 30 minutes of bouncing for six dollars, and we easily could have done the hour deal for eight dollars.  She loved it!  Here's a taste of the experience:

For those of you not keen on today's kid shows, on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, when Mickey Mouse needs a Mouseketool, he needs to call Toodles to show him the tools.  When Maizy recognized the shape of Toodles, she said "Oh, Toodles!" just like Mickey does.

After a crazy palm tree inflatable with two high slides (I had to carry Maizy up both with me!), Marc and I switched places, and he got to be the adult bouncer.  He may be having more fun than Maizy...


xoxo, Marcy

Happy July 4th!

Hello, and welcome to another edition of wheretheburkat.  You may be wondering where the name of the blog came from.  Funny story.  I have my ninth graders do an extra credit project at the end of each year.  The assignment is simply - Impress me.  They have to show me that they have learned something throughout the year, but the format in which they present the learned information is up to them.  A few years ago, a few goofy boys did a music video.  Neither the music or the lyrics were great (though I recall the dancing was fantastic!), but the title was, "Where the Burk At?"  I took that as an ironic nod to my excellent grammar teaching of NEASWAP (Never End A Sentence With A Preposition).  Yes, I realize my second sentence of this blog ends with a Preposition, but I think my wonderfully crafted 6th sentence makes up for it.

Back to camp.  We are in the midst of the second week, and we are definitely getting into a groove.  Here is our daily schedule:

6:45-7:15 - Maizy wakes up.  Marc gets her and lets me sleep for a precious few extra minutes.
7:30 - Everyone up, gets dressed, pack our stroller bag.
8:00 - We go to the flagpole for raising of the flag, some dancing, the sports report, the Modeh Ani (the waking prayer), and general announcements.  Maizy will inevitably start screaming at some point, so I bring her in to the Chadar Ohel (Dining Hall).
8:15 - Breakfast.  Maizy will now sit in her high chair one out of every seventeen meals.  The others she will stay in her stroller as long as I'm feeding her.  She has a strawberry or blueberry yogurt.  When there are eggs (she's allergic), she will eat a very nutritious cereal choice, such as fruit loops or cocoa puffs.  Today, though, there was french toast, and she was a happy camper.
9:00 - We've been making it until the end of breakfast in the dining hall lately, and after the meal and the prayer, we begin our rounds with Marc.  Marc goes around and supervises his sports staff, and we go with him, stopping to play and be general nuisances as each one.  We usually start at the soccer field.  Soccer and conditioning are occurring, and while Marc supervises, Maizy and I find some cones or balls to play with.  Maizy actually lifts an 8 pound kettle bell, but I think she's just showing off because she knows that kettle bells are my least favorite gym activity.  We then walk over to hockey, tennis, and basketball.  We usually pick a few flowers along the way.  Then we get to Maizy's favorite, the leadership center, in which there is gymnastics and martial arts.  Maizy sees the mats, and she yells "Out!"  When I unstrap her, she runs over to the mats and does somersaults to her heart's delight.  Sometimes we go check out golf, volleyball, and archery, but usually we hang out with the mats for a while.  We hang around until 10:30 or so, and then Maizy and I walk back to our room to rest for a while and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  If Marc doesn't have time off in the afternoon, then Maizy and I might go to the pool before lunch.
12:00 - Lunch.  Maizy has been asking for a nap at this time, so we've been skipping lunch, but today, we stretched her nap until 1:00, which was much better because she slept longer and wasn't so cranky at night.  Lunch was very fun today.  After eating, the music director took the stage with his guitar and did a medley of American hits.  The kids were doing conga lines and going crazy.  Lots of merriment.
1:00-sometime - nap.  It's sometimes an hour, sometimes three, so I never know what will happen.
4:00 - When Marc is able, we will all go to the pool.  Usually this is when the pool is closed, and the aquatics director gets to relax in the water, but he's fond of Maizy, so he lets us sneak in and play.  A lot of days, though, when it's been super hot, the whole camp is at the pool at this time, and that's a bit scary for Maizy.  We knew it would happen, but she definitely has many fan clubs, and sometimes when twelve girls surround her all at once, she freaks out a bit.  She loves the pool, though, although I have a hard time keeping up with her because she runs in and out, over and over, and she's wearing water shoes, so she doesn't know that my feet are getting very burnt soles!  She is still a daredevil.  She stood in line to go on the diving board the other day.  She doesn't understand that she can't swim yet, so she'll walk in and try to keep going even when her head is covered.  And she'll get upset when I move her shallower!  I'm happy she's not afraid of the water, but I'm not sure if I will be able to teach her to swim by the end of the summer.  She doesn't yet have the attention span or patience to stick with something for 10 minutes.
5:30 - Maizy and I get an early dinner and eat in the room.  The camp dinner is at 6:30, and Maizy is usually too sleepy by then, so it's been easier to eat at our home-time.
6:30 - Play, bath, milk.
7:30 - Maizy goes to bed.
7:30 - Marc comes home from dinner and can stay home for the most part.  Sometimes he has his guard duty from 9 pm to 1am, but he has someone to keep him company.

Here are the videos of the day:

She's an odd duck, this one.  

xoxo, Marcy

Such a big girl!

You may notice that she says "Wheeeeeeee" as "Veeeeeeeeee!"  Look, just because she's Jewish, she doesn't have to harbor any ill-will towards modern-day Germans, and if she wants to use a German accent, far be it from me to teach her otherwise.

Old Wives' Tales

I've never been one to believe in old wives' tales.  I actually jump in a pool quite regularly in the summer right after eating, and I also lather up the sunscreen just minutes before I jump in.  I have never had a debilitating stomach cramp in the pool, nor have I ever had a blistering sunburn.  But there is one tale that I am beginning to subscribe to - the one that says that worrying causes gray hair. 

On my 33rd birthday, Marc and I examined the right side of my scalp.  We examined my two gray hairs, and I giggled at the notion of how debonair I must look.  After almost a week at camp, the grayness is multiplying.  It may be time to invest in some dye. 

I consider myself a pretty easygoing parent.  I don't freak out when Maizy falls, I let her play in dirt as much as she wants, and I've been known to let her have animal crackers for breakfast. (She's not even big enough to be on the doctor's weight chart; she can use the extra calories!)  Still, the atmosphere here has caused me a lot of anxiety.  Today was extremely hot.  The heat index was 109, and while I'm not exactly sure what that means, I think it must be dangerous!  I put about an inch-thick layer of sunscreen on Maizy just to walk to breakfast this morning, and I pretty much refused to have her outside at all today.  The problem, of course, is that the air conditioner still is not fixed.  It is better; someone definitely did something to it today, but I'm still loving my cold showers at the end of the day!  So, knowing that Maizy and I needed to stay inside all day, I had to be creative.  My sister just read the novel Room, and as we were discussing it, she told me I could pretend to be like that mother and just make up games with what we had in our room.  I tried it today.  I mixed in a lot of pretend games with a lot of reading practice, and let's just say that Maizy will have an incredible imagination and lexical level by the time she's two! 

Another cause for worry is Maizy's eating habits.  She's still not eating very well here.  We did stock up at Walmart on some of her favorite staples, but she's not trying any of the food in the dining hall.  She may nibble here and there (we had a pretty hilarious encounter with a chick-pea at dinner), but she's more than happy just to run around instead of eating.  Because of my size, her eating habits have always been of probably more than average concern to me.   I want her to be healthy and active, and it's definitely a cause of anxiety that she's so active but not filling herself up.  I'll keep you updated when I do her monthly weight-check! 

Marc is still working 12-15 hour days, but he has been making an effort to come by and hang out with us when he can, so I've been appreciative.  It's nice when you get to see your husband, I think.  However, I am writing this at 10:48 p.m. as he's at a meeting, so it's still a bit frustrating at times, and I'm anxious for Big Brother to start on TV so I have more to think about during my waiting times instead of wondering if Nonnie on Bubble Guppies might have some kind of developmental disorder.  (I got certified in special ed.; I may as well do something with it.)

'Til next time - xoxo

Marcy

The Burkoms - Still Camping!

Hello!  Thanks so much for your comments on the last blog.  Today started the days that will follow of seeing very little of Marc.  He's a supervisor, and the supervisors are doing a lot of training and team-building activities, so we see him for meals.  When camp starts, he'll have a schedule of where he'll be all day, so we'll be able to catch up to him more frequently.  The campers aren't here yet; they actually don't arrive until next Sunday, so there's still another week of staff training.  Since I won't be working until second session, I am free all day to explore and wander.

After breakfast, which took place in this building:

Maizy and I walked past the "theatre":

where Marc watched an impromptu performance

of this tiny person:

Maizy and I passed our dorm:

(our two rooms are the ones on the second floor on the right)

and walked around to the dorms where the youngest kids will be staying.  The youngest kids are in third grade, and their dorms will be the dorms closest to ours that house children.  Maizy and I then went to our lounge which is downstairs in our building (because our upstairs still doesn't have air conditioning!!!) and played with a Jenga set for a while.  We then came up to watch a bit of Mickey on the computer and read and played until lunch.  

Maizy is not liking camp food so much, but I think it has a lot to do with the timing.  Lunch is when she would be taking a nap at home, so I've been stretching her nap until after lunch, but she's pretty cranky. Dinner isn't until 6:30, so she's very tired by then as well.  It will take a few more days to get her acclimated to our new schedule.  

After lunch, Maizy and I had a nice nap (don't worry; we've accumulated more fans!), and then we went to the pool for staff swim.  There wasn't much staff there, but we met the aquatics director who gave Maizy a life jacket and the assistant aquatics director, who I'm going to assume can teach Maizy how to swim this summer.  I didn't take any pictures of the pool today because I had to trail my daughter, who has NO FEAR of anything, and she ran in the water over and over until her mouth was covered.  I was teaching her to blow bubbles, but she just sticks her tongue out as if the pool is a giant sippy cup and tries to drink.  The pool has a nice beach entry, so I didn't have to worry about her going under, and I am happy that she is not afraid of the water, but let's just say I'm excited that there are lots of lifeguards!  ***Mom, don't freak out; I promise I'm watching her very closely!***

We changed and met Marc for dinner and were able to get a family shot:

before strolling home:

Marc had to go back out for more training, and I put Maizy to bed and figured out how to post pictures on to this blog all by myself (hopefully they show up!).  Tomorrow, I will try to get a picture of the woodpecker that lives outside my window and wakes up before the sunrise!  

xoxo, Marcy

P.S.  Here is our location and the playground outside our dorm.

The Burkoms Go Camping?

Let me make one thing clear: We are by no means "roughing it."  However, if you know me, you know that I am definitely an indoor girl.  I mean, I have been going to the gym a lot recently, but exercise and I still are not friends by a long shot.  I knew going into this summer job that there would be a lot of walking involved and a lot of outside involved.  Marc was very eager to take on a leadership position and build up his resume, though, so I took one for the team and agreed to spend my summer here, in Waynesboro, PA.  **If you are a burglar and reading this: first, good sleuthing to find my blog, and second, someone is housesitting, so find yourself another target.**

The drive up was very nice.  We took two cars, and it only took an hour and a half.  The camp is located right along the Appalachian Trail, and the roads were clear the whole way.  We arrived around 3:00 and were directed to our rooms.  Marc and I share a room; there is a door inside leading to a bathroom and another door from the bathroom leading to Maizy's room.  One of our stipulations for taking this job was that Maizy would be in a separate room.  I knew that the walking and the outside would be good for me; I knew that a summer not being able to watch my TV shows for fear of waking up Maizy would actually be a detriment to me.

Our room is very much like a dorm room at college.  It has three twin beds, one dresser, and one closet. The bathroom has a tub/shower combo, and the water pressure is excellent.  We brought Maizy's pack and play, as she's still in her crib at home.  We are both worried that at some point this summer, she will learn to climb out, but so far she will just scream "OUT" or "UP," so we're okay for now.

If you've had a little girl, you know that baby clothes are incredibly cute.  There supposedly will be a laundry pickup once a week, but I spent the whole year buying cute summer clothes for Maizy, and it was not fun to limit myself to only using one suitcase for her summer wardrobe.  Still, Maizy is tiny, and therefore has tiny clothes, so I managed to squeeze in probably enough clothes for the next six months without repeating.  Does joking translate on my blogspot?  I was joking, but only a little.  Come on, 18 month bathing suits?  Have you seen the adorableness?  I brought maybe seventeen.

My point, if I remember it, is that I filled the dresser in Maizy's room with just her clothes, leaving one dresser for Marc and me to share.  Luckily, we brought lots of hangers, so we just hung up most of our clothes and were able to condense the dresser items that way.

We took one trip to Walmart (the happening spot in Waynesboro, 2 miles down the road and the size of a football field) to buy some plastic drawers for our bathroom items, but I'm guessing lots more trips will be in our future as we figure out how to organize the rest of our stuff (though leaving it piled on the extra bed doesn't bother me much).

There is a playground literally ten steps from our door.  No swings, but Maizy loves the slides and tunnel just as much.  We went to the dining hall at 6:30 for dinner.  Six-thirty is normally Maizy's bedtime, so at that point, she was a bit wild.  She ran from one end of the hall to the other over and over counting all of the tables she passed and stopping to admire the "BIG FAN!" on the ceiling.  After dinner, when we coaxed her back to the room (I'm pretty sure she thought we were going home, so she was not a happy camper when we brought her back), we gave her a bath and put her in her pack and play with her lovie and blankets from home.  She screamed for a few minutes, but she fell asleep fairly quickly.

I do need to mention that while our rooms do supposedly have air conditioning, it is broken.  I don't like this one bit.  The system is supposed to be fixed tomorrow, and I am optimistic that it will be because it is HOT here.  We will sleep with the windows open and hope for the best.

Marc is a computer wizard and has allowed us to watch TV on the computer, so we're going to watch the season finale of Homeland before bed.  Look, it's no Glass House, but it's an enjoyable series.  I will take pictures tomorrow and post them if we have air conditioning.  If I don't post them, it's because I accidentally melted.

xoxo,
Marcy