This is getting ridiculous!

You must understand that I am from the Great Lakes region. While I've traveled around and lived in several different parts of the country, with different climates, on both coasts, the state I grew up in will always be home. I'm from a land of beautiful green hills, and hot sticky summers, and bitterly cold winters. There were four distinct seasons. Springs were wet. Summers were green. Fall was the most beautiful season with yellow and orange leaves drifting in the wind. And winters are white. While I don't love the chill of snow, I love the peaceful look of snow. I love to watch it fall at night on softly lit streets, covering everything in a blanket of white. This is winter to me. Christmas was not always white, but winter always brought at least one episode of beautiful snowman-making snow. My heart will probably always lie there, dreaming of the changing seasons, no matter how long I spend transplanted in this new brown desert landscape.

I do understand that my family is young. My children are small and have been blessed with the blissfully short memories of youth, where days stretch on for more than the prescribed twenty-four hours, a month is too long to contemplate, and any memory more than a year old is hazy or forgotten in favor of the memory of what they did yesterday. Soon the seasons will be something I tell them about, not something they remember. This is fine. This is life.

And I do understand that my family has just been forced to endure the longest summer ever, stretching from March until two weeks ago, with daily temperatures over 100 degrees. I understand that they are acclimating to our new climate. This is really a good thing. If we're going to live here forever (which we just might) getting used to the heat is a good thing.

But no matter how long I live here I don't think I'll be able to consider 60 degrees freezing cold! It just isn't. It's sweater weather (HOORAY). It's play outside weather (really, it is, if only I could convince my kids). But it is most decidedly not freezing.

My children are cold. They wear their coats on in the house. They lie on the couch, huddled under their blankets. They won't go outside to play declaring "It's too cold." They wear hats and scarves on the occasions I force them to run to the store with me. And it's ONLY 60 DEGREES OUT.

If we ever get to go home for Christmas my children will die the instant they get off the plane. They will put one toe outside, and immediately freeze to death. Their poor little bodies will be so shocked by actual winter, they will die. They have become fully acclimated "desert rats."

I expected this from the children. They are young, they adjust to change more quickly than adults do. But the worst one for the whining and the crying is The Greatest. I understand that he spent all summer working outside in the heat. Not only was he outside everyday in the 110+ heat, he was outside in a bullet proof jacket, and a thirty pound belt full of weapons. I'm glad he is acclimated, otherwise he would have died from the heat this summer. And as much as he whines I don't want him dead. So this is a good thing, but does he have to be such a baby about it? I'm not turning the heat on when it's only 60 degrees. Yes I understand that I am carrying around an extra forty pounds of baby weight, and all that fat is keeping me warm, but honestly. For the love of all that's good, why do I knit? Put on a sweater!

But I take it back, the worst one isn't The Greatest. It's this one.

Why yes. That IS my dog. In a sweater.

She's been whining, groaning, shivering and shaking, spending all her time in the carpeted rooms rather than allow her paws to touch the chilled tile floor. You've never heard someone who is incapable of speech complain so much. I couldn't stand it yesterday and found an old sweater for her to wear. She was suspect at first, fighting me a little as I put it on her, wondering if this was a new form of torture, but she quickly fell in love with her sweater. She is happy once again, wagging her tail and chasing the cat. She is warm. Isn't that what her fur is supposed to be for?

This is getting ridiculous.