Hot Summer Days

I know hot.

I’ve lived in hot.

I’ve lived in Southern California and Mesquite, Nevada almost all of my life.

I however, have not lived in a tent among those terribly hot days. Darn that greenhouse effect!

The locals here (all 10 of them!) have been stewing over what a hot summer it is. Apparently, this is usually the rainy season and it hasn’t been this blistering for over 30 years. When they first said the temperature would get over 25 degrees I thought, That’s hot? When you convert it, it’d simply be a cool 80 degrees to us. Not bad. I can do that.

However, I did not take into account the before mentioned canvas tent with no central air, and our little pocket of land that for some reason is packed in around a set of trees as to virtually never get any wind or breeze. That means sure- it’s 80 degrees outside. It’s also a baking 90-100 degrees in our tent. Outside isn’t much better without a breeze.

I remember in high school and jr high trying to devise ways to stay cool. Sprinklers under trampolines, water balloon fights, washing the car. Now it’s doing laundry (Lucy and Ethel style while standing in a bucket with your pants hiked up and stomping on the dirty clothes like they were a bushel of grapes), giving the baby a cold washbin bath, taking drives, or walking to the lake.

The lake is my favorite. No real shade and nowhere to sit, but I don’t mind.

If Chase is done working while it’s hot, he and I take drives around the lake. On one particular day, he rescued a little bird that had a bit of cotton stuck in its foot and couldn’t run. He picked it up and the baby didn’t quite know what to think.

After that, Chase tried testing the water- but with the baby instead of his hand. By the look on his face you can tell it was too cold!

We settled on just driving the rest of that day.

Another thing I’ve tried is sitting outside in a small patch of shade with the baby in his pack and play, covered in mosquito netting. It worked for, oh-about 5.2 seconds. That was until that small patch of shade kept moving and the only good spot was directly behind the pile of trash waiting to be burned. That, and the baby was so enthralled at the bugs caught in his mosquito netting that a nap was simply out of the question.

The only thing that seems to work for us is the lake.

The boys love it! Dad packs the boy on his back

And I pack the camping chairs, water and snacks. The baby loves the rocks on the shore. It’s taken us quite some time, but I think we finally trained him to give the rocks to Mom or Dad instead of putting them in his mouth. That is until tomorrow when he forgets what he learned today.

The best is when you time it just right and the water is warm. I’m talking comfort bath-warm. It’s fantastic! We strip the boy down his little tiny birthday suit and set him down. No squirming, no protesting. Just giggles and grins. He plays with the rocks as Mom and Dad sit close and watch him like a hawk. It takes both of us to make sure he doesn’t put those darn rocks in his mouth.

It’s times like these that I think, I’m almost glad it’s too hot to sit inside the tent.

Almost.