Hot or Cold?

Though the summer of '09 was, in general, relatively mild, there were a few weeks where it felt insufferably hot. It was a real bummer because Tyler was still in that "4th trimester" stage and therefore would've slept better if he was tightly swaddled (as per "Happiest Baby on the Block") or was a much happier baby if he was mostly naked (wearing just a cloth diaper). Swaddling became out of the question as all the blankets we had at the time were the 100% cotton ones from the hospital and weren't the thin muslin ones by Aden & Anais (mainly because I didn't know about the Aden & Anais ones till about October, when Tyler was already 4 months old). Forget trying to put him in anything other than a thin short-sleeved cotton onesie. Even shorts were out of the question. If he was to take a nap or be in a good mood, the ceiling fan or AC had to be on at FULL blast. That being said...

I often fought with my grandmother who complained that I was freezing my poor infant. Every time she held him in her arms, she would instantly cover him with blankets. Her reason was: his hands and feet were cold. Yet she would complain that he would be cranky whenever she held him. I'd often tell her that Tyler was quite hot, that it was quite normal for his hands and feet to be cool as those are the extremities. I even went as far as to point out the profuse sweat beading up on his head and nose and say: "Look, he's hot. Don't put the blanket on him or he'll be cranky." All this to no avail as she would insist that Tyler must indeed be cold as his hands and feet were cool to the touch.

This ongoing fight about hot and cold came to a head one afternoon over... a pair of socks. I came downstairs one afternoon to pass the baby over to my grandmother, making sure that he at least had a onesie. After having spent about 10 - 15 minutes going back and forth with my grandmother about making sure that she didn't put the blanket on my son, she then berated me for not putting socks on him. We then proceeded to spend another 10 minutes arguing over the importance of socks before she finally gave in and said: "Okay okay okay... no socks then."

I couldn't believe my ears! My grandmother actually agreed to "no socks"! I then decided to take advantage of being without a baby to take a nice shower. As I was combing my hair after my shower, I realized something missing from the changing table: a pair of white infant socks. I wasn't sure if the disappearance of socks was a result of my recent mommy-brain (meaning that I had actually put the socks away and then forgot about it) or as a result of my grandmother sneaking into my room to steal those socks. I snuck down some steps and peeked around the corner to observe my grandmother situated on the couch watching some Taiwanese soap opera on TV.

There she was sitting on the sofa cradling my son, who was wrapped up burrito-style in a blanket and sporting a pair of white socks.