Apogae Production. Welcome back to another episode of Am I A Bad Mum? Podcast? I don't know why we've just had school holidays, but I feel like it should be school holidays again. I don't know, I just feel like the last couple of weeks, like so much has like we've just hit a million miles an hour and now I'm like, okay, I need this.
I keep forgetting what week it is right Like, I'm genuinely feeling like this term.
Has kicked off really quickly.
I feel like though, between you and I, we've got four kids. Yeah, minor in year ten high school, so we've done all of the primary school, we've done most of the high school, and I still couldn't tell you how many weeks are in a term.
Google helps out with that sometimes in case you're like looking for that quick fix of like, shit, what date are they going to be home?
That's the only way I survive.
I've googled that several times this year within the term to work out what we were in.
Yeah, how lem I mean, it's probably in the newsletter that I read that it's not in Bullpoint.
Can't sorry?
Am I a Bad Mum? For forcing them to go absolutely not.
It would have been necessary for sure.
They went to school camp.
Absolutely.
As we know, my kids hate school camp. They have it two get at home. It's funny because all the kids to hate school camp.
But I think it's the older they get.
They don't like school camp because my two are the first ones on the bus and the last ones to get off.
They genuinely love it.
So I reckon it's older because the challenges get more, maybe like in depth for them.
Yeah, well this particular one, so they went out to it's called Emu Gully. It's like out to Womba Way. Yeah, and the particular days that they went it was rainy and stormy and they they were sleeping in swags outside. Obviously, they're not allowed to take their phones, and there are kids that do take their phones, but I'm adamant. I'm like, absolutely not. The rules are you know, allowd your phone.
First of all, I don't want you losing your phone. Secondly, I don't want you sat scrolling the whole night like you don't get any sleep anyway. And Thirdly, which I say thirdly it's kind of the first on the list, really is I don't want you constantly texting me about what a horrible time you're having. Actually don't want to know, Like I'm going to get that, like for a whole day when I pick you up, Yeah, gonna bitch and
moan and tell me how horrible it is. So for these two days, I want to be able to just not hear about it.
I just want to enjoy my time without you here whining about it. That would be the first reason for me too. Yeah, like the scrolling, Yes, that's gonna happen. They're gonna have a late night whatever.
But I don't want to hear about how bad a time you're having.
Come and pick me up. This happened. I'm so sad. Like, if I am not contactable, you'll just get on with things and you'll be fine. Yeah, and you'll cope with it all. But if I can be contacted, then you're gonna make sure that I feel shit about what you're going through. And actually I don't feel shit about what you're going through because I think it's resilient.
Oh, it's so good for them. So what did they get up to?
So they had to sleep in the swags and that first night was pissing down with rain, and then there was like thunder problems, thunder thunderstorms. Yeah, in my mind, I was like, surely they've had to hate them inside and they're sleeping in the cabins or something. Yet surely no, it slept out in the storm in swags. I said, what'd you do with your stuff? Because these swags are.
Like just you are they waterproof?
Obously, they definitely got wet, you know, those really tiny one man tents were literally and they said, Mum, it's so castrophobic, like being in a coffin because they're just bags and stuff outside in the rain. So all their stuff just got wet. And then what they had to do is so they were learning all about when I laughed last year saying that when they got in the car after school camp, it looked like they'd come back
from war. Literally they were teaching them about ANZACs and like one of the activities was they had one kid who turned out to be Amelia was chosen to lay on a stretcher. She was pretending to be an injured soldier and the other the group had to carry her. But they had to go through trenches like mud water at one point that were up to their necks in water like holding up the Oh my gosh, it's so good, stretcher above them mud everywhere.
Amelia would have loved that, because she wouldn't have been She's fine, she's light.
Lady, and all the others are like swamping through the mud. Holly looked at me when I picked her up and she was telling me about what she had to do. She went, Mum, we had to be barefoot. They were barefoot in the mud. I looked at the pictures. I had a look at the website, and they were showing me each different part that they did. I said, what if there was like something in there, like when I say something like an animal like? I said, was there anything in there? She went, I don't know. I didn't
even want to think about it. It's like swamp water.
Yeah, so they would have been eels in there for sure.
Yeah, And I thought snakes like they were in their bare foot and there's like.
I'll deal with it. Their first aid trained.
They know how to put on like a compression depression bandage to stop the poison going up their leg.
Yeah.
Well, steels are harmless. They don't go for you.
They just slither between your toes and around your ankles and.
Even washing their clothes. When they got back great, they had like this bin bag full of like the wet, muddy stuff. I took those like pants out and then like put my arm into it was inside out, put my arm in to turn it the right way round. And just the feel of that on my hand, of the mud and the cold and the wet, I was just like, oh, it's horrible. And then they had to swim in the creek to get the mud off. Yeah, it was cold, that'll be fine. Oh. There was the
funniest thing, mum. The shower was a bucket and we had to keep filling up the bucket and that's how we showered outside. And the toilet was also a bucket. It was a Bunnings bucket outside. They had to squat over the bucket. I said, did you go for like a number two at all?
They were like no, Oh my gosh.
They said, when you go to the toilet, you're winging over someone else's poop.
Who empty is a bucket?
I don't know what. They had to cook their own dinner?
Yeah, what were they cooking? Did you have to pack food and stuff for them? No, but they just had to cook it.
They had to cook it okay. I feel like there was a lot of resilience. But you know, the one thing that I was really interested in is that they had the option not to do those activities because it was all about not forcing people to do what they don't want to do, which you know, this is a controversial top topic. I know how we feel about it. I mean, back in the day, suck it up, princess, just get on do it. Yeah, you weren't allowed to have an option of not doing it because you didn't like it.
What was the ratio of people that chose not to do it then the ones that did choose to do it?
Was it huge?
It was like, yeah, I feel like it was. They said there were so many people that chose not to do it, like fifty to fifty. I said to Holly, but you chose to do it. She went, yeah, well, we were all working as a team and if I didn't, you know, help out. There had to be a certain amount of people to carry the stretcher. And she said, if I didn't do it, she said, Mum, for the first time ever, I like really didn't put myself first. I was thinking about everybody else. I was like, good,
I knew this is resilience. Now next day, my friend, you will be back at camp.
Yes, that's really good to hear, and especially in those moments, you sort of have that like as much as they bitch and moan about doing it, they did it. They could have bitched and moaned and then got there and then chose not to participate.
Yeah, but they didn't. They got in and they were like, let's do it. This is a team. And I love that.
I love that it actually means that whatever you're teaching them at home, it's sticking, much as they don't want to admit it.
Yeah.
I saw the teachers getting off the bus with Gracie's grade, which is like grade six.
Now, these poor teachers.
Look like they had been at war, and like one of them she goes, I have not slept for four nights, and I was like, I get it. I mean, like I don't get it because I'm not a school teacher and i haven't been away with that many kids, which was just like poor things. She was like, she ended up having like three days off from work because she was exhausted.
And do you know what, honestly, Rach, the preparation for this camp and the packing list and the stuff I had to buy. Yeah, I went to Kmart. I got cheap everything, including like runners to get wet and muddy. Cheapest came out ones. I spent four hundred and fifty dollars for two nights, so I got to camp. I could have got a five star hotel for that.
That is not going to teach them anything, But how was your five star hotels?
It was really good free time away. And just as we dropped the kids off, Amelia turned to me and went, enjoy your five star hotel. And I could see in her mind she didn't say it, but she may as well have gone, enjoy your five star hotel. You fuck it, then slam the door and off she goes to camp. By Darling, see you in a few days.