The daytime highs this week have been flirting with 90, and it’s only going down to about 70 at night, so we’re shifting to new routines. This morning, since the kids were up early, I took them to the park and playground by 8am and did my best to wear them out by 9. It was already pretty warm and humid at that hour (Katherine informed me of this about every five feet of our scooter ride), but I tried to help her understand just how much warmer it was going to get, and we got in a mile-and-a-half of scootering and some playground time before heading home. So, our strategies for conducting life in this weather:
Strategy #1: Heat out early for physical exercise.
Strategy #2: Motivate your family to get out by instilling in them fear of the heat that is yet to come.
Strategy #3: Hand them water bottles when they wake up, just before they step out of the car, and when they return from their play.
Strategy #4: Fail to fill the gas tank on the car when it gets a bit low, and convince the kids that we just “have” to walk to school after we finish lunch. Follow walk with more water.
Strategy #5: Later in the day, when they’re tired and hot and short-tempered, have homemade popsicles at the ready, for both kids and adults. One of Sydney’s best ideas was to get a sturdy blender when we arrived in Kentucky, and we’ve kept it busy making smoothies and blended fruit that I freeze in popsicle molds.
Strategy #6: Remove all heavy blankets from the kids’ room. Otherwise they will insist on sleeping under them, despite the warm weather. The kids don’t know where the blankets go when Mommy does spring cleaning, but I did promise that the blankets will return when the weather cools in the fall.
Strategy #6: After the kids are in bed, make both Sydney and Erin a quart-sized canning jar full of iced tea. Since even he likes some sugar in the tea, the tight lid comes in handy. You’ll find us shaking tea in one hand while we hold a book with the other on a lot of evenings in June and July.
Erin
Alan Schmierer