Wow. The Sun Is Hot.

One would think that I’m a brand-new mom and have never taken my children outside in the warmer weather. It was nice and toasty warm here today and my girlfriend and I took the kiddos to the park. It is always tricky this time of year when it comes to appropriate outdoor attire. Sometimes there is still a bit of a nip in the air even when the temperature goes up.

I decided against putting the little guy in shorts and opted for what I thought was the safer choice: wind pants. Last summer I stored a bottle of sunblock in the car so that I didn’t have to remember to take it with me every time I left the house. Of course I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet this year.















So there we were at the park. And let me tell ya, it was pretty darn hot out there today. Way too hot for wind pants and way too intense for fair skin to be without sunblock. After being there for about five minutes I was trying to decide whether the flush in my kid’s cheeks was extremely fast-acting sunburn that had the ability to penetrate the hat he wore or if he was being smothered to death by his too-hot pants.















One of the other young mothers (whose bag looked like it had enough stuff in it to cover any feasible emergency and then some) took pity on me as she watched me fret over the poor little guy’s face and offered to share her sunblock and some advice. For all of you out there who are ignorant in the purchasing of sunblock and just buy whatever brand you can find that is available with SPF 45, she told me that Blue Lizard sunblock is the best for kids because it contains zinc oxide (she works at a dermatologist office, so I guess she would know).















The little guy had tons of fun going down the slides while his sister chilled in the stroller and I found myself able to relax a little knowing that the sun wasn’t going to char and disfigure my baby’s face. I do believe I will put him in shorts tomorrow, especially if our day entails any romping around in the afternoon sun; and as soon as the period is typed onto the end of this sentence I am going to grab the pink tube of tear-free SPF 50 sunblock and put it into the diaper bag.