The Heat (and I Don’t Mean the Cops or a Sandra Bullock Flick)

This week has been oppressively hot in New York, so much so that I’ve been extra afraid to take Sienna outside and have thus missed out on a few NY Dads Group meetups in which I would I have liked to participate. More than one person has told me NOT to take Sienna out at all. Elaine took her for a short walk earlier in the week and came back drenched with our poor daughter sweaty, parched, and crying. And yet I see all these people taking their kids for strolls and/or to play while Sienna and I have been holed up in our apartment for five days, the AC running nonstop.

Part of the problem is that Sienna refuses to drink water (even when she went on that walk with Elaine); we also tried Pedialyte and cold tea but those were similarly rebuffed. If she’s not going to replenish her fluids, what can I do? Still I feel guilty over this and wonder if the strategy of keeping her out of this incessant heat has been smart or selfish.

To go to the Dads Group meetups, we would have had to walk to the Long Island Railroad station, taken an air-conditioned train into Manhattan, and then subways to our destinations. If aboveground is reaching near 100 degrees, I can’t imagine what the subway platforms were like, especially when you add in the heat from the people en masse. It’s certainly not something I wanted to deal with, but I would have done it if people hadn’t told me not to take her outside (therefore making me extra nervous about it) and if she actually drank water like a normal kid…or is refusing water normal? I have no frame of reference. Most of the meetups were outside, so that would have been draining. And then there would have been the return trips. Not fun.

The one time I took her outside was Wednesday evening when I met up with some college friends who, while on a roadtrip of amusement parks for their kids, stopped by Queens for dinner. It was around 6:30 pm when we left the apartment, so I think it had dipped below 90, though I’m not sure. Since Sienna was exposed to the elements for maybe a half-hour total broken up by air-conditioned car rides and restaurant meals, I figured it’d be ok, but even then I was nervous, and to be honest, the block and a half walk to the car left me soaked. Still, I hadn’t seen my friends and their kids in so long and Sienna and I had been cooped up for days during which her favorite times seemed to come when I let her run up and down the hallway, that there was no question I’d be taking her out. In the end, we both had a good time, and since it was late enough, Elaine was able to meet us at the restaurant on her way home from work.

Regardless, I feel like I’ve robbed Sienna a bit, like I plucked away a week of summer by forcing her to stay inside. Guilt is a very dangerous component of anxiety. Actually, let me change that – guilt is anxiety’s cohort in that they work together in a blissful symbiotic relationship. They feed each other and in turn feed upon the mind of the anxious. My daughter will be turn 16 months tomorrow, so it’s not like she’ll remember this week of heat-related captivity. Why am I torturing myself? Elaine said keeping her inside was the right decision. So did others. How many people have to say the same before I believe it myself? And that is the crux of the problem, of most of my problems – I need to stop relying on others’ opinions and beliefs about me in order to define myself and form my own viewpoints. How crazy is it that this filters all the way down into something as simple as keeping my daughter indoors during a massive heatwave?