Stories from the front lines of an unplanned pregnancy.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Hot child in the suburbs...

Today, it is hot.  Hot hot.  Surprising damp spots in places you didn't even think had sweat glands hot.  Actually, it's supposed to be the coolest day this week, but a lot that means when you live in the bowels of florida and your air conditioner is on the fritz. 85 degrees inside might as well be 185 to people who never let the thermostat climb above 73.  And add on ten degrees for the poor souls like myself who spend at least half their day with a warm blooded creature suckling at the teat.  

Ugh.  

In my desperate attempts to keep the spawn and I from melting, I'm pretty sure I've broken just about every rule in the Mommy Guidelines.  They say you're really only supposed to bathe 'em every other day or so, right?  Which means, technically, Ian should be good on soapless cool water baths until well into next february.  They say you should aim to stimulate baby's senses with fun, age-appropriate activities.  Staring into the sole box fan we've had blasting on us all day and playing "moss" probably doesn't count.  "Moss", for those of you who don't know, is when you and baby compete to see who can lay completely still for the longest amount of time, only instead of taking it easy on a couple of logs, you stretch out on an unmade bed and stare at the ceiling.  In fact, I'm even letting him sleep on his tummy, which (this year, anyway) is the cardinal sleep sin.  SIDS scares be damned, the boy is happy and quite frankly it's too damn hot to have to cuddle him back to sleep when he wakes up screaming from my trying to roll him over into a more American Academy of Pediatrics-friendly position.  Yeah you heard me-- suck it, Spock.

Does this make me a terrible mother? Probably.  But for the time being, I'm a cool one.  So now I ask you, oh legions of child rearing readers (god, i love a good overstatement), what do you do to help your tiny folks beat the heat when frozen margaritas are, unfortunately, out of the question? Overheated minds are dying to know.

With love and a cool washcloth,
a.