When You're Hot, You're Hot

Between this insufferable, stifling heat and my hot flashes, I spend most of the day and night wilting. Staying inside with a bunch of active kids doesn't work for long, so I need to find some creative ways to keep cool and give the kids the energy buster they need.

I keep looking at the neighborhood pool, but it has absolutely no shade; so is not much of an option during the heat of the day. We just put in some new grass (to fill in the dirt patch left from taking down the derelict playscape), so the kids can't run in the backyard through a sprinkler.

What happened to the summers of my youth? I used to spend most of the day outside. Were the summers cooler? Probably - California is not as hot as Texas. Also, there were actual trees where I grew up - we're not so lucky here. Our lone tree is still a relative baby. It's an oak tree, and they grow pretty slowly.

Will the summer memories be happy ones for my children? As homeschoolers we tend to do more schoolwork during the hot summer months, so I worry that their memories of those 'lazy days of summer' will be full of math equations and grammar.

Yesterday we watched "The King and I" because the middle child and I had just finished reading "Anna and the King" and I'd promised to watch the movie when we finished the book. I've seen the movie before (or so I thought) and it wasn't at all like the book. Guess that's a good lesson to learn. We agreed that the book was much better.

Oh no! Time for the smiling child to listen to patriotic songs for school - something about a boll weevil. In the meantime, the middle child is practicing his guitar (the song is totally unrelated to boll weevils); the teen is doing calculus - even though I told him he didn't need to do any math this summer; the princess is waiting for me to do music flash cards, and the dog is trying to find a cool spot to sleep (it's his job).

No wonder I'm loosing my mind.