It’s hot today where I live. 98 degrees F, and a warming trend expected for next week.

As you can probably imagine, my kids aren’t too interested in playing outside, unless it’s in the kiddie pool, and I’d rather let the sun get a bit lower in the sky before we do that, just to avoid sunburns and heat exhaustion. My kids tan well, but I burn very easily.

Today we’ve been having to come up with ways to stay fairly cool indoors. I’ve resorted to using the air conditioner. It’s set to around 80-82, not that it gets that low in here in this weather. I covered the windows that allow the most heat in so they have a little more insulation too. That makes a wonderful difference.

But the hardest thing is keeping the kids busy without just plopping them in front of the television.

Started out by making them a tent out of the couch cushions. Great fun for them, at least an hour’s creative play.

I’m making popsicles. I much prefer making them at home from juice, fruit or anything else that sounds appealing that I have around the home. Cheaper and I control how healthy they are.

They made macaroni necklaces today too. We didn’t dye the macaroni or anything, so first the necklaces were made, then the kids ate them. Crunchy, but not something that bothered them.

Times like this I like to have a lot of basic craft supplies on hand. Junk mail can be a great source of fun. Kids can cut out the pictures and glue them into collages.

We all drink plenty of cold water. One of the first things I do in the morning is throw drinking bottles into the freezer. That way by the time things are hot enough to be a problem, we all have ice cold water ready.

Amazingly, I’ve had to make a rule of “No Long Sleeves” for my daughter. She recently decided that long sleeves are more beautiful, and as a young princess these things are very important. The fact that she was sweating and getting headaches from being too hot even in 85 degree weather didn’t matter to her.

Without a car we don’t have access to some of the other great ideas for cooling off. No museums near enough to walk to, and the walk to the grocery store is longer than I want to haul two children along for. MapQuest tells me it’s 1.7 miles, but you try taking a 5 year old and 2-1/2 year old along for that. I don’t recommend it. Especially since that’s not exactly an exciting trip for the kids. Nothing nearer worth walking to in this heat.

It drives my kids nuts, but I’m keeping all the lights off as much as possible. They really don’t like it, but there’s enough light to see by. Compact fluorescents aren’t as bad, I think, as incandescent bulbs for heating a room up, but it still just feels cooler with the lights off.

I’d love to hear what other families are doing to keep cool in the warm weather.

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