September 2024
Ah, September. School’s been in session a few weeks, and the first whiffs of pumpkin spice are bringing on that cozy fall vibe. Now that all the three-ring binders have been acquired and you’re hitting your stride with the morning off-to-school routine, your thoughts naturally turn to…next summer’s camp plans.
Wait, what?
The pool toys might still be dripping in your garage, but yep, it’s already time to start thinking about next summer. Some camps open for registration in the next few weeks, and some of those camps go from open to waitlist faster than you can say, “But summer is like NINE months away!”
Part of you knows that summer will come, and you know that you’ll definitely want—need—your kids to be doing something other than slinging water balloons in the living room while you run a zoom meeting and try not to think about how to get popsicle stains out of lampshades.
Part of you knows you’ve got to do something. Surely, other parents are doing something, because last year they somehow knew that registration opened at 8 and not 9 a.m. and snapped up all the spots and your kid got stuck in Turtle Trek when what she really reeeeeaaaaally wanted was Creek Critters. (It’s probably that mom who organizes the snacks at soccer and always seems so on top of things. Didn’t her son seem to know an awful lot about crawdads at that last birthday party?)
But part of you is like, do I have to?
You thought you were a person who is on top of things. Look, you managed to get the right kind of pencil case and dutifully took notes at back to school night, and the kids made it onto the bus every day this week. Dinners got made, the dog got his rabies shot, and that big report seems to be getting some traction at work.
Planning summer camp on top of all that is just…a lot.
So much Googling. Pinging other parents. Comparing calendars. Filling out forms. You were proud that you managed it last year, and except for that one incident with the poison ivy, it was a great summer! But now your oldest is in a new age group, has a new passion, is SO OVER that thing they were so passionate about last year, insists they simply MUST go to a certain sleepaway camp but ONLY if Sam is going on the same week and gets put in the same cabin. Not to mention, your youngest is aging up into camp this summer, too!
What camps should you be looking at? Where is that sleepaway camp exactly, when is dropoff, what do the kids do all day, and would Sam’s parents consider coordinating weeks? How much does it cost, when do you have to pay, and oh crap how is it that registration already started a week ago?
If all this is giving you a familiar scramble-y feeling, you’re in the right place.
We’re here to make it way easier to be that person who is on top of things.
Summer camp is great! You want your kids to have enriching experiences, get silly with friends, make cherished memories, and, it bears mentioning, get the heck out of your hair from time to time. What you don’t want is for the process of finding camps, mapping out a schedule, signing up, and making it all work seamlessly to be quite so soul-sappingly time-consuming.
At KidsBooked, we are on a mission to take the scramble out of summer camp.
Our goal is to make finding, planning, and registering for camps fun and easy. Based in Carrboro, North Carolina and serving the full Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, we’re creating a fabulous source for everything you need to give your family a great summer in the Triangle.
Learn more about us at KidsBooked.com.
We’re new. We hope you’ll bear with us as we develop our beta camp-finder and figure out how to give you the tools you need to succeed. In this newsletter, we’ll keep you posted on our progress with KidsBooked, send out polls to gather your feedback, and provide informative resources to hopefully make your life a smidge easier while we’re building out the full kit n’ kaboodle.
Share your thoughts with us anytime at [email protected]. And, share KidsBooked with your friends! Even that mom from soccer who seems to have it all together could probably secretly use a bit of help staying on top of things.
Thanks for being a part of our community. We’re so excited to make something great together!
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