When my alarm went off yesterday morning and I reached out from under the covers to hit the snooze button, I was shocked at how cold it was in our house. Usually, I love this feeling. I’ll pull my arm back under the warm coccoon of blankets, curl up a little closer to Lee, and wait for the alarm to sound again.
But this time, I instead felt guilty as I pulled the comforter under my chin.
Little babies aren’t supposed to sleep with blankets, so I knew Miss Camille must be freezing. I wanted to run and grab her from her crib and stick her in bed with us. But at the same time, she’s been sleeping so well and I didn’t want to disturb her. The absolute silence on the baby monitor told me she was either still soundly sleeping – or frozen solid.
Until yesterday, our weather had been fairly warm, with highs often in the mid-80s. Our ceiling fans were still spinning, although the AC was taking a much needed break. Cami was wearing onesies and maybe a pair of socks during the day, with a light sleeper at night. Over the weekend, the air cooled a bit, but was still plenty warm during the day.
Then Monday night/Tuesday morning, the temps dipped into the mid 30s with a light frost. It was quite sudden and a bit shocking to the system. Our older house is quite susceptible to these shifts (the whole zero-insulation thing doesn’t help) and it gets cold inside in a hurry.
After taking a wonderfully scalding-hot shower, I finished getting ready before Cami even stirred. When she finally did, her little hands and feet were like icebergs, although thankfully, the rest of her was pretty warm.
She’d slept in one of her warmest sleepers, and we kept her in it all day. I added a hat and a flannel blanket, too. I was working from home part of the morning while she slept beside me curled up in her boppy pillow on the couch.
Lee and I usually wait until we can’t stand it one more second before we turn on our heater, piling on sweaters during the day and more blankets at night. But when Camille started to wake up from her morning nap, I didn’t want to play with her because that would require taking the blanket off. At that point, I turned the heater on. It’s one thing for Lee and I to get a little cold – but I couldn’t stand the thought of Cami freezing too.
The heater is still not up as much as I might like, because I know this cold snap is temporary. I recall a few years ago, we had the AC going at Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, and the next day warmer still.
But once we welcome winter temps for good, I’ll crank the heat up for Miss Cami. Time to start saving for that gas bill.