Is it wrong to have favourites?
(Probably)
A little unethical, right?
(Yeppers)
Well what if all your kids are your favourite, but just one is your favourite favourite?
(You're really trying hard here, eh?)
Well anyway, this past week was by far my faaaaaaaaaavourite of summer 2009. Cameron is 15 and no less than 6' tall. He is incredibly artistic and loooooooooves music. In fact, he loves a lot of the music I love, thereby making us a match made in heaven!
Cam is an amazing individual. He has a verbatim memory of various shows and books he has seen or read and can pull them out and repeat them on demand. For instance, on Monday we took a walk to the Specialty side of camp. When we got there, he noticed a "stage" in the parking log (this was actually an old dock that had been replaced by a new one). As we approached it, Cameron said: "Make a movie of me on the stage telling everyone about the true meaning of Christmas, from the seasonal favourite 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'". He stood on the stage/dock and began "Hey everybody I'll tell you what Christmas is allll about. Lights please..." (and when the imaginary lights came on, he squinted his eyes just like Linus does in the movie!). The monologue is quite long, but he didn't skip a single word. I'm lucky to have it on video to keep forever <3 .
So the music. Cameron loves music. I LOVE music. I prepared for him a new cd for Monday which included several of the favourites I determined he had during his first week back in July. Come On Eileen, On Top of Spaghetti, Don't Stop Believing, a couple classic Sesame Street tunes, and more. He loved it! The smile on his face was unmatchable in size, and I could sense his excitement as he learned what the next song was each time another one ended. He'd wait a few seconds to hear the first sounds of the song, look at me, and then start pacing the area clapping his fists (which is the way he self-stims when he's excited) and light up in smile. I loved watching him. He'd dance if I annoyed him enough with the requests, too. I taught him the John Travolta disco move when we played "Stayin' Alive", and then the YMCA for the Village People. We had quite the ensemble with Kim, Sarah, Cameron, and myself when Do Re Mi came on, and Supercalafragalisticexpialadocious was a tremendous hit. The kids in other groups came to love coming to arts and crafts, because that is where we listened to the music (quite loudly sometimes, haha). Cameron's music (all 3 cd's!) were the soundtrack to camp last week, and everyone was much happier because of it.
Cam watches a lot of Disney movies. My feeling is that recently he's been fixated on "101 Dalmatians". Or at least just the Cruella Devill song. I have approximatly 4 videos of "Make a movie of the Cruella Deville song in the Red Forest/in arts and crafts/walking to swimming/in the Canada chair" (each time performed in the exact same way, with the exact same emphases, the exact same expressions, and so on as the performance before it). I learned the words very quickly!
And it turns out that the Fred Penner classic "The Cat Came Back" (coincidentally also a book "written and illustrated by Bill Slavic") is a very long song! I also have video of that :).
Perhaps most impressive to me was Cameron's impersonations of various instruments (as included on the Casio keyboard he has at his home). Always to the tune of "The Cat Came Back", he'd ask "Which instrument would you like to hear?". Hmmm... The Jamican steel drums please. And he'd start the beat as the keyboard does "dun, dun, dun, dun..." and then break into his instrument. Can I tell you how ACCURATE each sound he made was? VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY ACCURATE! In particular, his pan pipe!!!! If you closed your eyes, he was playing a pan pipe! By the end of the week, I had been lucky to hear all of: the pan pipe, electric guitar, nylon acoustic guitar, Jamaican steel drums, kazoo, classical flute, and on the bus on Friday he gave me the bagpipes (complete with that drooping noise it makes at the end of any song bagpipes play).
Friday arrived and with it Cameron's last day of Camp Chippewa.... ever (very sad). We had a party with everyone from Helping Hands to celebrate his many years, only he didn't want to stay there, even if there were sour cream and onion chips bought just for him. And when I asked him to return to the party, all he said was "I cannot do that my friend" in a diva'ish accent (it was quite hilarious!). So we enjoyed his last moments of Chippewa together under a quiet pavilion. We walked his last walk down the bus path and said "Goodbye Camp Chippewa". While waiting on the bus, I was lucky to have one last music session of us playing the seat drums and Cam singing The Cat Came Back, and a 4 more pan pipe performances. His bus buddy arrived, which was my cue to exit stage left. I requested a hug, but got more. A kiss on my left cheek, a kiss on my right cheek, and a giant hug. It was the best moment of my week.
Oh. He also made me a cd. He called it "Hot & Fresh Pizza Pizza Celebrity Grouping 4 Track Set", and included just 4 songs (which I had previously included on the cd's I created for him): Come on Eileen, Grease Mega Mix, Tubthumping, and Stuck in the Middle With You. I've been listening to it all weekend <3 .
I miss him already, but cannot dwell. Other kids are waiting for me, and I'm excited to see what they bring.
Next week: The Mona Lisa Troy Lover returns! (i.e. Lorena ;)
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