I, myself, really prefer winter.  There’s just a heck of a lot more you can do about being cold than you can about being hot, and besides, you don’t often get all disgusting because of the cold.

Unfortunately, it’s not winter now.  It’s summer, and here in Maryland, that means absolutely disgustingly hot and humid when it gets into full swing.

Summer, for us, means camp here, and the Monster’s into his fourth week at day camp.  Getting him onto the bus isn’t a big struggle – he’s been used to it from the school year – and it’s easier still since he knows as well as anything that going to camp each day means going to the pool, which he adores.  On the other hand, the heat has the same effect on him as it does on everyone else, which means making him moodier and icky-sticky sweaty riding on the bus to and from the camp.

My biggest concern is keeping him hydrated, though.  The Monster’s not big on drinking plain water, and we really don’t want him guzzling juice all day due to the sugar in the stuff.  We sent a Mio along with his backpack so that his one-on-one aide can flavor his water during the day and encourage him to drink… but there’s really only so much that he’ll drink, that I’ve seen.  Plus he often doesn’t say anything about being thirsty until he’s prompted about whether he wants a drink.

Proof of this was when we went to the IronBirds game last night with Pathfinders for Autism – it’s in the mid-90s here during the day during this heatwave, and the humidity was high enough that sweat wasn’t drying off to help with the temperatures.  He was, of course, matted with sweat since our seats were in the sun for the first two innings or so… but never really balked about the temperatures or feeling icky.  On the other hand, he accepted just about anything we were offering him drink-wise… and still was perfectly dry this morning after having fallen asleep in the car (meaning he was dehydrated last night when we left the stadium).

I don’t know how other parents of children in our situation take care of this, but I get the feeling I just need to push and push and push the drinking….