What Happens At Camp Seale Harris Check In?

by Erin Turnham

Registration for 2023 Camp Seale Harris is open as of November 1, 2022! Registration is open for Summer Camps (Day Camps ages 5-15 and Overnight Camps ages 6-18), Family Camps (ages 0-18), and Teen Leadership Forum (grades 9-12). You can view the dates and locations for 2023 programs here. Register your child now at https://csh.campbrainregistration.com/.

The 2022 Camp Seale Harris Junior Camp was Grasshopper’s third overnight summer camp. It would have been his fourth since he started going in 2019, but of course Covid derailed those plans in 2021. We have been going to Camp Seale Harris events since soon after his diagnosis at 21 months old in 2013.

The family weekend camps held at Camp ASCCA in Jackson’s Gap, Alabama helped us become familiar with the facilities. Those weekends together with other Camp Seale Harris family events gave us plenty of time to get to know the people in charge, and to ask lots of questions before Grasshopper was even eligible to go to camp at age 6. By that time our family was as ready as we could be! Even with all that preparation, our first check-in was daunting! I was nervous to leave him, he was ready to stay there and play, and I had heard how long the check-in process was.

To help out other families, I’m sharing what happens during check-in at Camp Seale Harris’ Jackson’s Gap location. Full disclosure, I’m both a parent and a board member. I still stand in the same line as everyone else at check in! This year I took photos as Grasshopper and I went through each station so you can have a first hand look.

Is Grief Recyclable?

by Erin Turnham

Context: I began writing this on Monday, March 30, 2020. My kids’ last day at school in person was Friday, March 13, 2020. Our school went on Spring Break March 16-20. Due to Covid-19, in-person school wasn’t an option for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year. For the 2020-2021 school year my kids did school virtually. Thanks to the timeless work of grief and the continuing stresses of those two years, this essay still resonates for me. Note: At this time Grasshopper was using the Medtronic 670g and Dexcom. Since that time he has used the Medtronic 770g and Medtronic Guardian sensor and currently uses the T-Slim Tandem with Dexcom G6.

Today my grief is an empty crushed cardboard pizza box. I feel used up, discarded, smashed. Left in the bottom of the can. Greasy, worthless. Littered with crumbs and soggy sauce smears. Where can I leave this grief? How about guilt? Into which bin do I toss my selfishness? I want to throw it all away. I want to be rid of these jagged, used up emotions that tire my mind, and pray that something good can be made out of the clutter. By someone else. I don’t want to do the work of it, I just want to be rid of it all. Grief is work. Sigh.

In the midst of global troubles, my family is trying to manage the daily routines of type 1 diabetes. We had an incident which brought into sharp focus how much work T1D life is.

Camp Seale Harris Summer Family Camp 2022

Camp Seale Harris Summer Family Camp 2022

November 2019 Diabetes Awareness

by Erin Schovel Turnham

I’m excited to host an event in the Alabama River Region for people with type 1 diabetes and their families! This will be a simple get together with yard games on Saturday, November 16 from 9 -11 A.M. in front of Pike Road Elementary School in Pike Road, Alabama.

type1funflyer_2019_11_16.pdf

7 Tips : What To Do When… Your Child Says, “Mama, Look At THAT Kid!”

 

In the foreground a child’s finger points to a young boy, blurred, in the background. The boy crouches on the grass next to a large flowerpot. His posture is slouching and pouty. His arms rest on the flowerpot rim. A toy yellow tractor rests on the grass.

By Erin Schovel Turnham

Nothing quite strikes fear in my heart like my child pointing at another person and saying loudly, “Look, Mama!” Children are naturally curious, and without the social filters we acquire as we age.

A neighbor asked me how to broach the subject with M, her 3 year old daughter. Grasshopper and Sunshine were out playing with M, and Grasshopper had to stop to check his blood sugar. Their friend was obviously curious and while she didn’t ask any questions, her mom wondered how to address it. I was grateful my neighbor reached out.

One Small Step For A Grasshopper

Grasshopper needed some reading practice, so I made a deal with him. If he read a whole book to me, then he could choose another, new book. He loves learning about real people and historical figures especially. The series “Ordinary People Change the World” written by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos is in heavy rotation in our house.

Mud Volleyball

By Erin Turnham

This was in August, 2018 and it was a BLAST! $834 was raised for T1D Mod Squad.

You know when you get that urge to drive 4 hours to go play volleyball in a mud pit with people you’ve never met? Yeah. I’m there.

Choose Kind

by Erin

I recently watched “Wonder” on Amazon Prime Video. It is the story of a family whose son is born with Treacher-Collins syndrome, a condition which alters the development of the bones and tissue in the face. I know I am late to the conversation as the book was published in 2012 and the movie came out in 2018, but I have had a couple of kids and some crazy years recently. Reference: all of my posts on this blog.