funinthesun

We’ve hit it.  🌡 The dreaded triple digits 🔥. It’s like the hat trick of the Southwest except all we win is the end of mosquitos because it’s too dang hot for even them. I suppose that’s something and I should take what I can get.

If there was an emoji for your face melting off every time you went outside, I’d use it right now– 😰  but this was the closest I could find.

You load the kids in the car 🚘  (sweat like a pig 🐖 ), you turn the car on and the air conditioner just blows all the hot air around (sweat like giant wild boar 🐷 ), then you get home, take a cold shower 🛀🏼  and collapse under the air conditioner dreading the next time you’ll have to do it again.

If you live in the southwest in the summer, you just learn to stay indoors as much as possible.

In fact, there are two happy scenarios in an AZ summer:

Out in the pool 🏊‍♀️ 

In an air-conditioned space 🌬

This is how we survive living on the actual planet of Venus ☄️ for about five months out of every year.

Having a bunch of little kids stuck indoors in the summer is probably about like my neighbors to the north having their kids stuck indoors in the winters ☃️ . Same type of problem but a whole lot less snow ❄️  to shovel.

Over the years, I’ve developed a few tricks to keep me from going insane and keep the kids from going stir crazy.

We talked about making sure we hit the chores every day and that *really* helps to keep things routined and regular.

Here’s another idea:

Family Memberships to local museums 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

We’ve gotten memberships to our local Children’s Museum, a world-class Musical Instrument Museum right down the street and the Butterfly Wonderland 🦋, also close by.

The family memberships pay for themselves after only a few visits!

My one main goal: get the kids out of the house and into air conditioning (mostly for me). The kids could roll in the heat all day but it will suck the life right out of me and I’ve got to keep my life until all the things are done and I can melt into a puddle in my bed. 🛌🏼

The other day, I took the kids to Butterfly Wonderland 🦋 and we only had an hour and a half before they closed

We had the family membership and IT DIDN’T MATTER that we waltzed 💃  right in right before close. No one was there. We had the run of the place. It was easier for me to keep up with the kids and they loved the freedom.

We have been there eleventy million times but IT DOESN’T MATTER. There is always something new and interesting to look at. Also, my attitude determines their attitude. If I treat every visit with excitement and wonder… they will too.

I’ll leave you with a short story about TJ who was looking at the bee colony:

TJ *very serious*: “Mom, did you know bees 🐝  poop the honey out of their butt?”

Me: “Why, no… I wasn’t aware of that.”

Me: “Are you saying that honey is *actually* ‘bee poop 💩’?”

TJ *leans in and whispers*: “Yes.”

TJ: “The bees fly around and lick the honey off of the flowers 🌸  and then they poop it out of their butts.”

We might have to make a few more trips in that air-conditioned wonderland before TJ gets his story straight.

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