about a bit

my friday find today was the last day of the Clearview Camp. I'm so relieved! Scott and Micheal, i have new respect for what you do everyday. it's exhausting being a camp counselor; enjoyable but tiring. i've been the arts and crafts counselor everyday and i've really learned that you HAVE to explain every detail if the kids are going to understand and do the craft properly. where to put the glue ("david, not the inside of the jar! the outside dear."), how fast paint and glue dries, how to blot your paintbrush after dipping it in water, that paint will smear when it's wet and you touch it, and the correct size to rip tissue paper so it can fit onto a small glass jar. the 30 minute sessions sometimes seemed like eternity with nobody getting the idea. kids would be distracted and ask to go swimming instead and would be covering their project in globs of glue instead of strong strokes of paint. then other days the kids really got it and got into it and spent a long time to get it right. and their projects turned out just like i had pictured. i love the way children's art looks and the way it looks in a home. it's colorful and friendly and lively. it makes me happy to be able to fill people's homes with pots their kids have painted and lanturns they've made from tissue paper(wild colors!) and glue and painted wooden boxes.

some campers and myself. playing "who started the motion?"

i wish i had taken pictures of the table-full of crafts that the week produced. but i didn't. instead i've photographed the little beauty i found when i got home today from Camp Clearview. Her name is Olga and she wandered barefoot into my kitchen with her tossled curly hair and her little bathing suit on. it's funny how children just drop into my life here. i'm always meeting new ones. this one lives in my town and i've never seen her. i think the story is that she's adopted from Russia by a woman in town. are children this adorable everywhere?