Will She Come Home, Or Won't She?

So, this week is Girls Camp.  Cinderella has been looking forward to it.  I hate to say it, but I think she has been looking forward to the 'being away from the family part' of it more than anything else.  I would be offended, if I weren't also a bit relieved to have one of the girls out of the mix.  Sometimes three girls is a crowd around here.  But, we'll miss her more than she'll miss us, that's for sure.

I pretty much overdid it this past weekend with dance recital, so Cinderella took initiative and packed everything and wrote a shopping list, then begged me to call her friend to meet us at the store for "Camp Shopping".  Not to be mistaken for "going to the grocery store" or "picking up some snacks" type of shopping.  So we did the "Camp Shopping" and loaded her up with treats to share with the other campers.  Very official like.  I think she was pleased.  She definitely felt prepared to go, which is great.  

My one concern?  (Okay, there are way more than one.  My mind likes to go crazy with a myriad of possibilities in which Cinderella will come home with one less limb...but we won't dwell on my psychotic imagination problems...Where were we?...)  Those darn retainers.  You see, Cinderella got her braces off just last week.  And she needs to wear her retainers 24 hours a day.  Which is great, unless she needs to eat.  And then she will take them out, and they will be wrapped in a napkin, and we will never see their $170 faces again.  Unless we like digging in the garbage.  Which we don't like to do.  But, that's not really the point.  The point is, I am not there to dig through the garbage.  And I would totally do it.  (Despite my psychotic brain thinking of all of the reasons that doing so could cause me death or loss of limbs...)  But, I can't.

So, I've told her: "Don't come home unless you bring those stinking retainers home with you." 

Perhaps I was a bit too harsh.  But, this smile cost us a lot, darn it, and I don't want to pay a penny more.