Living in a nonair-conditioned home would make me cranky, too. We went through that here in Ga. without A/C a couple of years ago in July and it made us all tired ornery; my husband’s seizures even increased. My son and I get headaches in the heat, too; so I completley understand, though a southerners tolernace is higher than ya’ll’s (flipped in Winter).
That being said, living without A/C didn’t become quasi-normal for the general public until the mid-seventies. My husband grew up in Miami w/o it until 1976; my grandmother never had it and we’d visit her mid-summer; my parents never had it, so on and so forth. Remember watching Andy Griffith and in the evening time they all on the front porch? That’s because it was too blasted hot in the house! However, I’m sure they didn’t live in a state of almost constant crankiness.
So, yes, I would discipline slightly, but with grace. We can be understanding but not excusing; teaching the character issue of making the best of an uncomfortable situation; not being a complainer, etc., ect. Esp. the arguing; whether ya’ll go to someone’s home is your decision anyway, not theirs. Getting out of the house may break the monotony of the same-ol-same-ol and recharge everyone. I say go! You need it, too.
Have them all apologize to each other and send everyone to their rooms until its time to leave!
Or engage them in some sort of work to keep their mouths and brains occupied until time to go. Send them outside to run in the water sprinklers; have them sit in front of the box fan and have a sibling spray from behind the fan with a spray bottle-then they can work together. Make sure everyone’s getting hydrated. Whatever you seem worthwhile.
I sympathize…hopefully it will break soon. We had heat indexes of 105 last week.
Rachel
ps are you close to Mentor? My SIL lives there.
