Harry Potter, Locker Rooms, and Underwear

Camp day number two. The day began quite wonderfully with a minimal amount of sweat, a beautiful breeze, and a lovely group of girls. Munchkin #1 was on her best behavior after some serious praise (WHOA, Munchkin #1, I LOVE the way you are listening. Oh my WORD, everyone look at Munchkin #1- isn't she AMAZING???), and we arrived at the drama tent right on time. Our engaging specialist E~ was doing a wonderful job of keeping my kids happy and participating, and began to do a name game. An up-and-coming trouble maker, Munchkin #2 introduced herself as Harry Potter. When pressed for her real name, she responded "Hermione." She never again was out of character- the ENTIRE day. Through the rest of drama, lunch, swimming, baseball, tennis, and snack- she remained Hermione. She talked about her muggle parents and her best friends Ron and Harry and her interest in (no joke) Ancient Runes. She discussed our serious lack of knowledge concerning the game of Quidditch and tried to conduct spells with a twig she carried around. Whatever- I took it in stride and just let her try and levitate her food with a cry of "wingardium leviosa!"

For those of you who have never supervised a group of 13 six year olds changing out of swimsuits, let me give you some details. You can be the BEST counselor in the world, and there will still be missing items. There are naked little girls everywhere, and screams and laughter and crying. There is hair waiting to be tied up and combed out. There is (Munchkin #1) who needs to take a shower for her skin condition, and there are 12 other girls to refuse to let shower. There is sunscreen everywhere because parents are emphatic about putting sunscreen on RIGHT after swimming. The sunscreen doesn't stay on because the girls are still wet, but this is completely beside the point. There are discussions of privacy and marriage and courage and cooties and boyfriends and beauty and swimming teachers and the deep end of the pool and bravery. There are awkward stares when the counselor (yours truly) drops her towel while changing back into the sweaty clothes in front of the girls because you can't leave them alone for a second. And then there is underwear.

There is underwear in every place imaginable. In a bookbag, in a shoe, in a locker, in a lunchbag, in someone else's lunchbag, in the toilet stall, and in one sad instance, ON the sopping wet child. And Munchkin #3 has NO underwear. No underwear anywhere. She is sure she wore it this morning. She is sure she looked through all of her things. Then we are ALL sure we looked through all of our things. Then I am sure I looked through everything. And there is no underwear anywhere. I am honestly about to suggest to this child that she go commando to baseball and tennis, when enters... Hermione. And with a cry of "Accio underwear" and a wave of the twig, Munchkin #4 pulls the missing underwear from the dirty towel bin. I believe in the magic of children.

And after the reapplication of sunscreen and the singing of songs and the passing of papers and the walking to the far field, we are nearly 38 minutes late for baseball. Oops.