August 2009, Brooklyn, NY. The weather outside is 90 degrees or more. When I walk outside it feels like I am walking into a pizza oven. The sidewalk is emanating heat.
Inside it is just as hot. Our air conditioner is on the fritz and everyone in the apartment notices the intense wave of pure unadulterated heat. Especially my son.
We had to strip this perpetually zooming toddler down to his diaper in order to combat the intense rays of pure hot that invaded our apartment. I was having fantasies of taking my son and a sleeping bag and camping out in a movie theater for the exclusive pleasure of capitalizing on its powerful air conditioning.
Last night, my son was not having the heat. Even his best friend, Egreck the cat could not make him smile by the end of the evening.
Though he gave it his best shot, not even Rupert the infamous platypus was successful at invoking a smile on this hot toddler’s face.
It was just too hot. In fact, it was so hot in my son’s room, even with the ceiling fan blasting and a fan directly pointing on him he was still unhappy. My boyfriend and I racked our brain for a solution. We took him into the living room with us where the air conditioner was limping along. I tried to have him sleep on my chest. He would fall asleep for a few moments and then wake up when one of the cats moved or jumped over the baby gate.
We opened up the pack and play and stuck it directly in front of the handicapped air conditioner.
I put my son in the pack and play and rubbed his head. After much head rubbing and praying to Hashem, he finally drifted off to sleep around 10pm.
For those of you out there with small children and a broken air conditioner, I feel your pain. For people out there with no air conditioner, I am truly sorry. The heat can make anyone lethargic and potentially grouchy.
On that note, I’m off to share a cold glass of water with my son.