When you’re ginger, sitting at the ‘Casper the friendly ghost’ end of the skin tone spectrum, and blessed with a cleavage that no bikini on earth could hoist into place without some kind of heavy-duty scaffolding, summer can be a trying time.

Add a toddler into the mix and you have a whole new set of conundrums to solve!

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  • Things Miss O will happily wear on her head include the colander, the bag her Duplo came in, and her father’s pants. Will she wear a sun hat? Will she f*ck. I’ve tried strapping it down, stealthily dropping it on top of her head in the hope that she won’t notice, even wearing it myself to show her that all the cool kids have one…no joy. Apparently, if you keep putting it back on their head, they’ll learn to accept it. OR you’ll spend an entire afternoon hat-squatting your way around the park and throw your back out. Just saying…
  • Speaking of parks, whose genius idea was it to make the slides OUT OF METAL?? Don’t touch the oven kids, but sure, go ahead and shimmy your arse down that slope of molten lava…
  • I’m totally not ‘summer ready’ – I gave it a go for a few months after Christmas but then she was ill, and Papa John’s started delivering to our area, and well, it all went a bit downhill from there. On top of that, whenever I pull on the classic floaty top or bulge-skimming maxi-dress, I have to think to myself:

    A – How easy will it be for her to flash my boobs to passers-by?
    B – Ditto for my knickers when she starts playing peekaboo with my skirt
    C – Will a chocolate hand smear blend into the print?

  • It would be easier to train an army of ants to dance the Macarena then it is to apply suncream to a wriggly toddler hell-bent on escape. The same child who quite happily rolls about in mud and tried to down my Chanel No 5 the other week screamed blue murder as I chased her around the living room, haphazardly spraying anything that moved, until we collapsed in a sweaty (yet fragrant) heap. Only two hours to go until round two!
  • I’ve never been a fan of birds, but there’s a special place in hell reserved for those little sh*ts that frolic about outside Miss O’s window at stupid o’clock EVERY FRIGGING MORNING (they’ll be joined there by the bin men who host their weekly glass smashing contest centimetres away from my door during naptime).
  • Toddler logic – as soon as you get your summer sweat on, the very best thing to do is launch yourself towards the nearest warm body (usually me), cling on for dear life and fester away together on the sofa in a drippy heap until one of you starts crying (again, usually me).
  • Having put those early days of worriedly monitoring her breathing as she slept behind me, the heat had me once again creeping into her bedroom and sitting an inch from her face to check that she was OK. In the end I couldn’t take it anymore and we moved her into our (much cooler) room to ride the heat wave out. I’d forgotten how much fun it was being roomies; starting awake every time she moves, agonising over whether you’ll wake her up if you get up to pee/turn over/ smother your husband in his sleep before the snoring permanently deafens you… and then, at 4AM, you glance over and there she is, standing bolt upright in her cot and grinning away at you, ready to start the day.

    • Bollocks.

Did anyone else do a little happy dance when the heat finally broke?

JakiJellz

17 thoughts on “Why summer can do one”

  1. I live in the Deep South, USA. It’s hotter than hell for months. We simply hibernate for the summer. If you’re not engaged in some kind of water-based activity, it’s all you can do.

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  4. Haha. I love this. Why do they insist on clinging to us when its so hot. I’m not a lover of summer either. I don’t really like the heat but the killer for me is the pollen. Every year without fail, from June to September I’m walking aroung with big red puffy eyes, sneezing every 5 minutes. Not a pretty sight. Roll on autumn. #TriumphantTales

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  5. Oh this is hilarious!!! I have to confess that I love summer, especially in France where I’m from, as I don’t do so well with the near constant temperatures and high humidity of the Irish climate. Hope it soon gets cooler for you.
    #TriumphantTales

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  6. Oh dear, having read your post, I can genuinely understand why you want summer to do one. The whole sun hat thing alone is more than enough to deal with. I can’t say I did a happy dance, but I was pleased when it cooled down a bit #TriumphantTales x

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  7. I’m 46 years years of age and live in Dubai and struggle so much with the ehat that my husband packs me of to the UK for summer every year just so he doesn’t have to listen to me whinging, sadly I arrived on day one of the UK heat wave and I’m still complaining just via skype now #triumphanttales

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  9. My daughter is nearly 12 an still cuddles me all the time! I kept telling her to stop mauling me while it was so hot lol. I am so glad it’s cooler now.
    #TriumphantTales

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  10. What a hilarious post! Too good honey! Love it! Keep it coming our way! And enjoy the heat! We are headed to the beach soon and I will try to report back in with tales of our own! #triumphanttales xoxo

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  11. That heatwave could actually go feck off as far I was concerned. I hated it, more so as the inlaws kindly loaned us a huge fan…. for Bens room… not ours… Bens (can you feel the eye roll right there?)
    Ben also hates hats… even if I try to put caps on sideways, back ways… anything to keep the ginger out the sun but he throws them on the floor. He also has a habit of pulling my tops down… Hubby loves it though hahah!
    Thanks for sharing your pain with us at #TriumphantTales. Im praying this little heatwave doesn’t get that hot again!!! See you tomorrow!

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