Our favourite season has come at last. The weather all Brits spend the year waiting for. Heat and sunshine, all at once. Two whole weeks of Summer. I both love and loathe the sun in equal measure. When given the choice, I prefer to sit in the shade. Some heat is lovely but anything above 25 degrees celsius and I start to become irritable. And permanently thirsty. My “have you drunk enough water?” lecture to Maia intensifies and I spend all day every day offering Leo “another sip?”.
This dehydration-anxiety annoys Maia so much that even a mere mention of her water consumption will prompt an immediate shut down:
“Did you finish your water bottle?”
“YES MUMMY.”
“Do you need a bigger bottle? I could get you a two litre?”
NO I DO NOT NEED A BIGGER BOTTLE…We can refill them at school Mummy!!”
I am reminded of the source of this anxiety when we go to visit my Mum and Dad:
Maia’s Grandma: “Maia have you got water? Shall I get you some water? Drink your water darling.”
Maia: “Grandma I am fine!”
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Today it is 29 degrees and I am hiding indoors with a poorly Leo. He has overheated somewhat and developed a fever, a result we think of being exposed to the heat for a moment too long. (It seems he does not respond well to sudden rises in temperature.) Other than emitting more body heat than the rest of us combined (plus our central heating), his symptoms are mild. The poor boy is just incredibly hot and equally fussy. He will cling to me for vast periods of time in a position we have aptly named “the koala bear”. It is still possible to get things done around the house with the small wriggly furnace wrapped around me, only with the added exertion of strength training.
Ice lollies and Peppa Pig have helped encourage him to sit on the sofa without me. The rest of the day has been weightlifting practice.
Of course it’s all well and good inside the house where we are relatively cool. Collecting Maia from school is another story. I feel awful plonking an already-hot little boy in the oven that is our scorching hot car with barely-functioning air conditioning. It takes so long for the hot air to turn cold (sometimes it doesn’t and I’m effectively sat with a fan heater on) that I usually give up and open the windows.
“Do you actually feel any of the wind back there Maia?” I ask, hair flailing over my eyes.
“Oh yes!” She says trying to reassure me as she melts.
We have black-out blinds on the back windows, the all-encompassing kind that are placed over half the door, so at least the children are in the dark and away from the sun.
As a little treat (and because I was worried the supermarkets would run out), we stopped for more ice lollies on the way home. (Several boxes of ice lollies, a tub of ice cream and one big bag of ice to place on my lap in the car and serve as a cooling agent.)
Leo can’t be trusted with an ice lolly in the car, so he enjoyed a nice cold juice box instead. We relax our “no juice or squash for the toddler” rule when he’s poorly.
We relax our “limit his screen time!!” rule too. The Peppa Pig jingle has lodged itself so firmly into my mind that I’ll no doubt both go to sleep and wake up humming it. No change there really.
The Colourful Kind 