German Obedience

June 20, 2011

Busy Bee Camp- Day 7

It isn’t anything unique for a Busy Bee camper to be multilingual.  As soon as they get into their parent’s car, many of the campers are no longer speaking English.  Two of the Busy Bees, both born in Germany, are brothers named Christian and Sebastian. Sebastian is two years old while his brother Christian is five.  Prior to attending my cousin’s school, they couldn’t speak any English.  And these boys are just the cutest things with their white blonde hair and blue eyes.  The little guy, Sebastian, has the most adorable smile and giggle. I just melt.  Sebastian, though, has a very bad habit.  Out of nowhere, with no rhyme or reason, he will just hit the other kids. I know. It sounds really bad. For the first few days of camp I was actually really disturbed by his behavior. My god, here is a kid just hitting other kids for no reason. Maybe it’s he felt like it. But now I think it is one of the funniest things ever. Out of nowhere. Whack! What is interesting about it is that he doesn’t do it to be mean; it’s almost like a reflex.  But it is a daily occurrence that Sebastian wails on another Busy Bee. Sometimes he makes them cry, but sometimes they don’t even notice.  We always tell Sebastian that it isn’t nice to hit people like that. And he listens when you tell him. But it doesn’t matter.  Anyway, his brother, Christian, may be the brightest child at Busy Bee Camp. Christian is able to figure out puzzles and word problems that some of our counselors can’t even solve. 

Today at camp we celebrated a birthday. The Birthday Boy’s mother brought cookies for all of the Busy Bees to enjoy. The Busy Bees are used to getting small cookies and crackers for their snack, but today the Bees were getting adult sized birthday cookies covered in pink and yellow frosting with sprinkles.  When it was snack time, the Busy Bees were all sitting at their tiny tables and chairs in the classroom. Sebastian had gotten into a bit of trouble, so he was ordered to sit with me at table to take his snack.  Everywhere kids were making huge messes with the cookies. I looked out across the crowd to see sprinkles and crumbs covering the tables. Kids had yellow and pink frosting, combined with drool, caked on their faces. It was an ugly site.  I looked at little Sebastian, and he wasn’t an exception. But, in another way, he was. When Sebastian was done with his cookie, which he did not finish, he got up and threw away the remainder of the birthday treat.  Sebastian then looked around the room and spotted a package of wetty wipes in which he strategically pulled out three naps.  Sebastian took one wetty wipe to clean off the cookie mess from his face.  He took a second nap and wiped off our table.  And then he used the third wipe and picked up cookie crumbs and sprinkles from the floor. Finally, Sebastian made his way to the trash can and disposed of the now soiled wetty wipes.  It was unreal. I didn’t ask him to do any of that. I looked around the room to see that the rest of the Busy Bees were still covered in the birthday cookie mess, and they stayed that way for the rest of the day.  Christian, too, is very meticulous, but today it was Sebastian’s tidiness that had me in total and complete awe.