Too hot.
Too hot to think. Too hot to do anything but hide in the shade and dip in the water.
Every room in my house is unbearable, unless you’re directly in front of a fan. And when I say “a fan” I mean “the fan”. And when I say “you’re” I mean Z baby.
Bodies are weak and exhausted of energy. Fuses are short, words snippy.
Let’s all be gentle with eachother. We’re not used to this heat.
Rain, where are you?
Here are some ideas for how to keep cool in this crazy heat.
Popsicles – Enjoying a frozen treat instantly drops my body temperature to a slightly more tolerable level. For myself, I enjoy juice or gingerale frozen in our popsicle molds, whereas for my babe I try to offer frozen almond milk popsicles, or to work as a double whammy, I let her chow down on these cold and nutritious quinoa-psicles.
Cold drinks – To be perfectly honest, I’ve been loving radlers lately (a fine intermingling of beer and grapefruit juice, offered by several different brands – my favourite being the 2% Stiegl), but these are not appropriate for all times and places. I try to avoid pop, so I made up this recipe for a very tasty and refreshing sugar-free soda pop in a variety of flavours, and it definitely does the job.
Go to a lake or the beach – The sweet, sweet relief from the heat that comes with diving into (or even wading into) a body of water cannot be forgotten. This is my number 1 preference for cooling down. It’s definitely helpful to consider the time of day and orientation of the beach so you can avoid full sun while you’re at the beach, to keep cooler and skip out on the sunburn. Bring a hat and slap on some waterproof sunscreen to all the exposed bits!
Splash in the kiddie pool – If making it to a naturally occurring watering hole just isn’t going to happen, a quick fix is to pour some water into a little kiddie pool to lounge about, with or without the kids. For those of us on water restrictions, we certainly can’t be filling it up every day, but even a very shallow puddle helps quite a bit.
Stay up late – I recently decided to throw out my toddler’s bedtime schedule as it just wasn’t working for us. You can read all about the various reasons here, with a big one being that it’s far too hot in our house for sleeping until late into the evening.
Follow a shade schedule – Without air conditioning at our home and a deck that is in full sun all afternoon and evening, we have come to develop our own schedule around where is the coolest at different points of the day. For us, we start inside for breakfast, move outside on the shady deck until about 11 when it comes into the sun, then walk down to the lake to catch the shade and cool bathtub temperature water until nap time. Little miss naps in the shade of our carport, then move to the trees in the back of our property, or head out again to find water. It’s almost a coordinated dance of time and a desperate attempt to keep from overheating.
Stay in front of a fan – Unfortunately for us, one of our fans has met it’s ultimate demise, so the sole fan stays blowing in Z’s room all day to keep it from becoming an oven. I have just reminded myself writing this that I will need to go down to the hardware shop today to get myself a new piece of wind equipment to worship.
What do you do to keep cool? Have you ever tried drinking hot drinks like they do in Turkey, or elsewhere in the world, to supposedly raise your body temperature so that you don’t feel the heat as much? I’m curious if it works, but just too hot to risk giving it a try. Any experiences appreciated!