Nidifugophobia? There's an App for That.

Early Wednesday morning, amid piles of sleeping bags and duffel bags and swarms of excited children waiting for the bus to take them to Camp Indianola, Martha's mother approached me, looking a little shaky. She wasn't able to come to Camp, and neither was Martha's father, and she wanted to know if I'd keep an eye on her daughter, just in case she felt scared or lonely. Remembering the year Josie was in second grade and I couldn't go (and I burst into tears while asking Brenda Nelson this same question) I said of course, I'd be honored.

Back when Josie was in second grade, Camp was something of a black hole, communications-wise -- cell phones didn't work (if you had one, even) and e-mail was out of the question. A truly homesick child could use the Camp phone to call Mom (not that it helped the child much, usually -- and I'm sure it made Mom feel absolutely wretched), but mostly the children were happily occupied with rope swinging, beach combing, campfire singing, and late-night giggling -- blissfully unaware of their parents' neuroses. Josie and I survived this Bermuda Triangle relatively unscathed, and I'm sure the experience was good for both of us.

This time, thanks to Granny Shan's old iPhone (thanks again, Granny Shan!) I was able to assuage Martha's mother's worries by snapping pictures of her daughter having a glorious time and e-mailing them out in more or less real time. Thursday morning, in response to a bravely restrained voice mail expressing concern about the adequacy of Martha's rain coat, I sent this:

And later that day, after a grateful return text, I forwarded this one:

Once or twice I wondered if the stream of reassuring documentation might have the unintended consequence of making Martha's parents feel even worse about not being there -- like when the babysitter tells you your child learned to walk while you were at work. (Or just plain jealous, like when people send you a picture of their whole beaming, bronzed family on a beach in Greece as a Christmas card...) But I figured the pleasure of seeing their girl in action would outweigh such pangs. And I know both of them have experienced the excruciating parts of Camp (like that interminable hour where you somehow scrape twelve shrieking children off the walls and wrangle them into their pajamas and duct tape them into their beds and compel them to close their eyes by the sheer force of your desperate will, knowing full well that they will be up and shrieking again at 5 am) enough to know I wasn't just taunting them with fun vacation photos).

Still, I did pause briefly before forwarding this little sequence along:

Only briefly, though. I'm sure there are people out there who would rather not know that their small daughter was being flung into orbit at the end of a rope miles from home -- at least not until she was safely back in their arms... Happily, Martha's parents are not two of them.