Barneyisfat

This hasn't been an easy week for me.

We did Sparrowwood wrestling on Monday night. The plan is to make everything very fake and very WWF (I know - the same thing.) Sparrowwood is a camp for children and adults with mild to moderate developmental disabilies. We put on a good show for them and they laugh a lot at us.

My good friend Michael is one of their counselors and was telling us about how often kids thought that he was a Sparrowwood camper and would be really nervous around him until they found out he was "normal." Michael suggested that I dress us like a Sparrowwood camper for the hour that parents are bringing their sparrowwood campers - so that I would realize how stupid people are when they talk in a different and often demeaning tone of voice to the mentally challenged. I decided I wouldn't because it might appear to be mean.

Well, one of the immature staff heard this all and when a Sparrowood staff (a very mean and agry staff member) got angry at him he told her that I was going to dress up like a Sparrowwood camper for wrestling. She went to my boss and we had to have a big section meeting about it. I came off looking like the worst person ever.

I have been having back pain right about where my kidneys are. After 3 days of 12-16 ibuprofen not helping I was still in a lot of pain. On top of that I had my boss (still angry at me because I supposedly made fun of retarded people) yelling at me for not putting my best effort into it. He made all of my kids wait for me on the porch before lunch. I was in the staff lounge waiting for the bell (which they decided not to ring for that particular lunch -the first time all summer.) My kids all yelled at me for being late.

My boss yelled at me for getting cereal before all of my kids had all of their food. They keep telling us "campers first - always put the campers first" but they built a 3 million dollar building that campers aren't allowed in.

After lunch I went to the doctor and found out that I am only having back muscle spasms. Hey, at least my kidneys aren't failing. One of my campers was switched out of my cabin and into another cabin. He was accidentally put in the wrong age group, and this is seriously the first time a camper has ever been switched mid week. I realize that none of it was my fault, but I feel like the worst counselor ever - I have 4 kids while everone else has 6 kids, and I don't feel that I have energy enough to take care of the 4 of them.

My battery is almost dead - if it were a staff member I would tell it to get re-charged and then not give it any time plugged in. Then I would get angry at it for not being good enough.

I'm sorry if I sound bitter. It's probably just the meds talking.

I have 4 great guys - all fairly shy, but very well behaved. I hope to be able to help them grow closer to God. I hope my back stops hurting.