Sticky

Our children have little to no memory of living in a house without central air conditioning.  Anymore, central air seems to be an asset Midwesterners take for granted, as sure a thing as tornadoes in spring and the fair in late summer.  Of course we all remember sweltering summers spent at the grandparents' house where you trailed ice cubes over your face as you sat inches in front of the fan, and who could forget that May where my third grade classroom's window unit quit working (PURE, SWEATY MISERY), but at least in my experience, central air is anything but uncommon in the Midwest.

Here, it is a different story.

Few houses appear to have central air, excepting new construction, of course, of which there isn't that much.  Window units abound, and we can usually pick out a few ductless units here and there on our walks.

Why all this riveting HVAC talk?  Well.  Yesterday at 3:30 p.m. the temp was in the low 90s, with a "real feel" of 105 degrees.  We're living in a house without central air, which has been, shall we say, a learning experience for our precious children.  Learning that no, Adelaide, we're not going to bake a pie when it's already 85° in the kitchen, and no, I'm not buying that chocolate-covered whatever; it'll melt in our cabinets and I've already over-stuffed our fridge trying to keep everything fresh.

We did go out and purchase window units for the kids' rooms, because if the kids aren't sleeping well, we aren't sleeping well.  Derek's rigged a series of fans to try and pull some of that cool air from one of their rooms into ours, and it's provided some relief.  I'm sleeping just fine, but I feel like I tolerate the heat better than Derek, possibly because at any given time I seem to operating around ten degrees cooler than he does.  Hover your hand over his arm at any given time and you'll feel that he simply radiates heat, whereas most of the year my hands can double as ice packs for your sore muscles.

Fortunately the temperature's supposed to take a dive Tuesday, so we've only got a couple more days of stillness.  That's how we've been coping:  by being very, very still.

Contraptions!

Activities that don't require much movement are current favorites in this house, which means we've been playing a lot of games like Quirkle and Roll For It, with Contraptions being an ongoing favorite of the boys.  Atticus suggested Twister the other day and I'm still desperately sad I wasn't quick enough with my phone to capture the look of disgust on Caedmon's face at the idea of allowing our sticky selves to touch each other.  We've spent considerable amounts of time at the two local libraries, at the pool, and have been eating outside in the evenings.  Ice cream is also a balm.


While I don't remember Connecticut winters to be as brutal as Iowa's, I still know that there's going to be a time come February when I'll curse my summer self, wailing that I didn't appreciate the ability to go outside, that I wasted precious time moaning about the heat that my winter self longs for.  So yay for summer, sticky heat and all.