The battle of 95

The phrase "fighting the heat" has always been one that I've said without thinking. It has just meant that its hot, slightly uncomfortable, that I would of course be happy if it was a bit cooler. I never thought of it as an actual action, of physically "fighting" . . . until this year.

Unlike Alister, I grew up with heat. We had hot summers but they were also dry and dry heat is always more bearable than humidity. We also lived in a house, surrounded by trees and a big swamp cooler that rumbled away on the top floor in summer months and cooled the whole house.

Philadelphia was hot, but in America there are so many places you can go to get out of the heat even if you don't have air conditioning in your home. I was also working the summer I was in Philly - and there was air conditioning at work.

In Kiev, living in an apartment with a baby, there is only so much you can do and you begin to realize that people do die from the heat, especially babies. Suddenly it hits home that you really are fighting the heat. There is no offensive plan in the battle, it is purely defense, and this in and of itself makes you feel a bit hunted.

A warm front has come up from Africa and covered Northern Europe. And the heat is staying. There is no wind, not even a breeze. At night, running a fan in front of the window all night, the temperature in the room didn't even go down a degree. So far we are losing the battle. On Sunday, the lowest temperature in our apartment was 31 degrees (88F) today it has risen to 33 (91F). We have all retreated to the bedroom. Kiev is not a young child friendly place. I can't pack the baby up and go sit in an air conditioned cafe or mall. There are no baby changing stations, no real acceptance of public nursing - at least you never see it. I did nurse publicly once when my mother-in-law was here and we went for coffee, but we got some looks. But even if we did leave the house -how to get from point A to B in the least and coolest amount of time is also a challenge that needs strategic thought.

And so we sit in the bedroom, the ceiling fan running, another fan blowing on high over frozen water bottles, and the cat panting under the bed.

Saphira is miserable. Her activity time now consists of a cold bath, or sponging her with cool water. The heat has succeeded where tiredness and a string of visitors in Northern Ireland didn't - it has made a very unhappy, crying baby. And such a mournful cry. The heat has also put us back on a 2.5 hour routine where as we were almost up to 3.5 hours before. This is normal, apparently, as breastfed babies drink less, but more often, to cope with the heat and get the high water content that they need to manage the heat.

Today we left the house at 7 am and just sat under the trees until 8:30. Already it was getting hot and so we came back to our closed, dark, hot apartment.

The sidewalk in front of our home - normally a busy thoroughfare of activity throughout the day was empty yesterday - not a soul from 9am until after 6:30 pm. The market is only open from 9am until 7 - and so the question is also how to take care of the shopping - fresh veggies and meat - with a small baby in the heat? How to do the shopping in the supermarkets in the evening with a baby who knows it is time to sleep for the night at 7:30? And how to put a baby to bed in the heat when she likes to be swaddled and wakes herself up without it, when the temperatures mean that any added layer of fabric is a torture?

So we sit and strategize our next line of defense in the battle over our apartment.