What Dreams May Come

I have very vivid dreams. Very crazy vivid dreams. The more crazy the dream, the more exhausted I am in the morning when I wake up. I remember dreams that I had as a child incredibly clearly. I also sometimes dream about places that I haven't been before, only to go to those places in the future. I know that sounds absolutely insane, but for instance I had this dream years ago about living in a house with two story high ceilings in the kitchen, a tv on in the room to my right and my husband standing on a catwalk looking down to me...and then we moved into our current house and I knew it was the house in my dreams. Whooooooohhhh!! (that is my scary noise :)

I also dream a lot about my husband cheating on me. Let me first tell you a little bit about my husband. I think I love my husband more than most people I know love their husbands. I genuinely like everything about him, and can honestly say he is my best friend. We have also never really had a fight. I know right now you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking "yeah right!" but seriously we have never had a real fight. Sure we have disagreed about things, and sure I have gotten mad at him for things a few times, but we have never raised our voices at each other in anger or gone to bed mad at each other. It just isn't our style. He is an incredibly devoted husband and father, who spends all of his free time with me and the girls, except for the occasional golf game here and there. He doesn't go out after work with friends and get drunk, he comes home and reads stories to his girls and helps me make dinner. He works crazy long hours and does travel for work, but does his best to get home every night to at least help put one girl to bed.

After 13 years of being together we are still very attracted to each other, and aren't afraid to smooch in public. I trust him whole heartedly, and he has never given me a reason to feel otherwise.

So why, in the name of Ron Burgundy, do I so frequently dream about him cheating on me???

I did a little research (aka I did a Google search) and found some interesting things on dreams sites about infidelity dreams. Turns out they are a lot more popular than I thought. As expected, dreaming of your spouse cheating does not mean that they are cheating in real life, or even that you suspect them of cheating (which I of course do not). It actually most times means that the dreamer has a deep seeded anxiety either about their appearance, their attractiveness or about the future in general.

I know this isn't science, but it totally rings true to me! Ever since we started trying to conceive (in 2007) and I was continuously gaining weight due to fertility drugs and being somewhat depressed about not getting pregnant for two years I haven't felt attractive. It wasn't until recently, when I started eating Paleo and working out, that I started to feel somewhat like my old self again. For years I hated looking at myself in the mirror - 40 pounds overweight, skin hanging off my body, droopy boobs (this really hasn't changed much of course), stomach protruding so much that even sucking it in didn't make a difference, all my clothes too tight (and no where else to go but the "big girl" stores). I have started to get myself back into shape, but still don't love what I see in the mirror. I still see skin hanging and stretch marks, and freckles and weird moles, and the beginnings of wrinkles around my eyes. Inside I feel like such a young cute person but then I get a glimpse of myself and I am reminded that I am not who I used to be. I sometimes think to myself "how could my husband (who still looks like he did when I met him 13 years ago) still be attracted to me?"

And I totally have been having anxiety about our future. We had all these issues with M's current school, and then scrambling to apply and pick a private school for her. Then we decided to start looking for a house (what size house did we want? Where do we want to live? Are the schools good enough? Should we send the girls to private school?) and then stopped, and then decided to build a house from scratch. My husband changed jobs late last year. And of course we had Val last year - juggling two kids is no easy feat, so of course I have anxiety about everything that comes along with that. Are they going to like each other? Will they turn out to be good kids? Are they safe at school? Should they be watching so much TV? Are they eating enough vegetables?

Last night I had the craziest dream I have ever had about my husband . I will spare you the details, but it was one of those dreams where you try to wake yourself up because you don't want to be dreaming it anymore. I woke up 3 or 4 times during the night, in tears. Each time I fell back to sleep I would think about something else, in hopes to not dream about the same thing, but without fail I was right back in the same dream! Why does that only happen with the bad dreams?!?

Tonight I hope I dream about my husband and I sitting on the deck of a beach house, drinking delicious wine and talking about how our daughters turned out to be amazing, successful, happy women. That is one I hope will come true...and in this dream I have a fabulous tight and tan body.

Goodnight!

When Good Woobies Go Bad

My daughter sleeps with many things in her bed at night. She has three woobies (or lovies) - Mr. Woobie, aka Mr. Woobs, who is her favorite and is basically king of the castle, Giraffe Woobie who is second in command, Monkey Woobie, Miles the Bunny and now a Llama Llama doll that my mother bought for her. There have been other things in the past year that she has rotated in, like a Dot the Ant doll I bought when I worked at Disney in college (from Bug's Life), a little soft green pillow, and as of late she has wanted to sleep with this little yellow Lego flower. What can I say, the kid is weird!

WHOOOOAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Every night before we leave her room we do "roll call" and make sure all of her "friends" are in her bed with her. She immediately grabs Mr. Woobs and gets him all settled in her arms before she falls asleep. Everyone else takes a back seat to Mr. Woobs...until two nights ago.

I was awakened to screams from the monitor around 2:30 AM on Wednesday morning and look at the screen to see M hurrying out of her bed (this has never happened before). She is unable to get out of her room, as there is one of those door knob blocker things on there, so she is pounding on the door as I run down the hall to her. I find her standing there sobbing and saying "I'm scared of Woobie! I'm scared of Woobie!" I scooped her up and brought her to my bed (hubby is away for work so it was just me) where she fell back to sleep about 30 minutes later after I calmed her down.

Fast forward to the following night, where at the exact same time the same thing happens - she screams, gets out of bed, I go to her room and she tells me "I'm scared of Woobie!" and ends up in my bed again. I begin to think this is a dramatic act on her part and a means to end up in Mommy's big comfy bed (a very rare occurrence) but I let it slide and she and I sleep for a couple more hours - along with our big dog who has recently had mental problems and now can't be left alone (more on that in another post).

So last night I promised her we could lay in Mommy's bed before she went to sleep and watch a movie. I ask her if she wants me to bring any of her "friends" and she says ok, so I went to her room and grabbed Mr. Woobs. Well, as soon as I brought him into the bed she threw him back at me and said "No thanks Woobie. Mom you take him." I was shocked, and put him on my nightstand. "Are you sure you don't want Mr. Woobs to watch the movie with us?" to which she replied "I said No Thanks Woobie."

After the movie (Rescuers 2 Down Under - what a terrible movie by the way!!) I bring her into her room and realize I left Mr. Woobs in my room. I tell her I am going to go get him and she says "No Mom. He stays in your room. No Thanks Mr. Woobs."

This child has slept with Mr. Woobs during every night and every nap, every airplane ride and long car ride for the last 2 years of her life! He is the first thing that she checks for when she goes to sleep! And now he is dead to her...WTF did Mr. Woobs do to M in her dreams?

I asked her last night if she remembers being scared by Mr. Woobs and she said "yeah, he was mean." Apparently he did something terrible to her in a dream that first night, and now they have broken up. Today at nap time she didn't even want her #2 Giraffe Woobie in bed with her either. What kind of crazy hi-jinx did her Woobies get up to her in her head? I have mental images of them being 10 feet tall, with crazy eyes and fangs trying to smother her...with scary circus music playing in the background.

But I guess we will never know...makes me sad to think Mr. Woobs and Giraffe Woobie will be absent from roll call. At least until they apologize to M for whatever they did to her in her dreams.

High Anxiety and Crazy Pregnant Dreams

I have always had whackadoodle dreams. They are always very vivid, and of course feel very real at the time, and I remember them for a long time after I have woken up. Even now, at 33, I remember dreams that I had when I was little - the one that sticks out the most is my brother and I hiding in the bushes in front of our house watching this foreign army come and set up camp outside our property walls, and us throwing rocks at them telling them to get away. The funny thing about a large portion of my dreams is that I can pretty much interpret the meaning of them the next morning.

For instance the one from when I was little is pretty much a reflection of what my brother and I used to do as children in our front yard. My father was a famous athlete at the time, and people used to drive by our house and stop at the gate and take photos of our house, or park out front and just stare in at our house while my brother and I were on our big wheels. We would then proceed to ride past the gate giving dirty looks or yelling things like "leave us alone!" - hence us throwing rocks at the invading army.

Of course there are others that are just insane that don't mean a damn thing, and then there are some that I swear actually come true. I remember unpacking at our current house and looking up at my daughter and husband on the catwalk and remember that I had dreamed this exact scenario, in this exact house. It was the strongest sense of deja vu, but I knew that it had actually come to me in a dream a few years back. Call me crazy, but I swear it happened.

Then there are the ones staring my dear sweet husband. While pretty close to perfect in real life, he is the biggest douche nozzle in the history of douchiness in my dreams. More times than not I will wake up and tell him that he cheated on me in my dreams, or divorced me, or had another family living in another state (or like the other night he introduced me to the Asian hooker that he frequents)...dream hubby is a real a-hole, while real life hubby is pretty much Prince Charming. He thinks that I am crazy for having all these dreams about him being such a jerk, but I have recently confirmed with friends who have awesome husbands that they too have the same reoccurring dreams. Of course, unlike one of my good friends I do not remain angry at my husband after I wake up...ha!

But no dreams are more crazy and vivid than the ones that I have during pregnancy, and I think a lot of that has to do with the anxiety I am feeling during this pregnancy. As I have mentioned in previous posts my first pregnancy had a lot of complications so I was monitored a lot during the actual pregnancy. This time around it is the opposite, and while there are a couple things we are watching with the baby and myself (placenta previa), there isn't anything as drastic as last time (very low amniotic fluid, Papp-A, high risk for downs, etc.). So this means that since I am going about as a normal pregnant woman would, with doc appointments every month and just a handful of ultrasounds (as opposed to the 15-odd I had the first time,) that my mind is totally racing with crazy thoughts...which then turn into crazy dreams.

Every twinge of uncomfortableness I get I automatically think something is wrong. What was that pain in my side? Is my bra is too tight, or maybe I am having blood flow problems and there is something wrong with the baby? Did I just pee in my pants? Or is that crotch sweat? Or amniotic fluid? I haven't felt the baby move in a couple hours, something must be wrong! I also stop and look at M, who is almost 2.5 years old and a pretty awesome kid if I do say so myself, and think about what people have told me about it being impossible to have two awesome kids, so then I get all worked up about the hellion that is growing in my womb. What do I have in store for me with this kid?

Then there is the regular every day anxiety that seems to be heightened by being pregnant. When I walk the dog with M in the stroller I am always afraid we are going to be hit by a car, or fall down a hill, or someone is going to try and take the stroller out of my hands - so I am basically holding on to the BOB with a death grip for the entire hour. When we are out and about I hold M's hand at all times, and she is never outside of a foot from me if we are around strangers, because every person that looks my way I think is going to take her from me. Oh and forget about it when we are driving - every worst case scenario runs through my head the entire time I am behind the wheel...I am going to lose control and crash into a tree...the guy behind me is so close he is going to ram us...we are going to run out of gas and then be abducted on the side of the road...you name it, I have thought about it.

But I know I am not alone in thinking these things, as one of my best friends and I had a discussion about this a few months back. She had been taking one of the anxiety meds before she got pregnant and had been off it since the birth of her last child, but had been thinking about it going back on it lately because she has all these crazy thoughts. And I looked at her and said I HAVE THEM TOO! but I have never thought about going on meds, because I feel like most mothers have them. Do you readers have these thoughts as well? I have them normally every day, but being pregnant makes them happen much more frequently and they are much more extreme now.

And the dreams...holy crap the dreams the last two nights. Al Pacino was my mobster father (he was dressed as his character in Dick Tracy) and he was having his thugs do all sorts of terrible things to me, and I couldn't dial the phone to get in touch with my husband, who I then found out didn't exist and I was locked in a basement somewhere. Then last night I dreamed my mother was also pregnant, and she laid a giant egg (I am dying laughing while I write this) and gave it to me to take care of, but I dropped it, and inside was a baby girl who couldn't open her eyes - explain that one! Many times I have dreamed about losing the baby, or not being pregnant at all, which leads me to tears in my dreams, therefore tears in real life, and that sweet relief that comes with waking up and realizing it was all a dream. My dreams have become so exhausting that even when I get 8 hours of sleep I wake up feeling so tired and drained.

Did anyone else experience these crazy dreams when they were pregnant? Not ones staring gangster Al Pacino, but crazy ones of your own? And was your anxiety heightened?

What Dreams May Come

This week I've been even flakier than usual because of lack of sleep. The Duchess has been getting up daily between 4:15am and 5:15am and then wailing, waking up Honey and thus, me. The Grump is eerily immune to this fussing, although he could be faking so I'll get up and tend to them, but that early in the morning, I don't even have a brain to figure out trickery let alone how to deal with it. Anyway, both girls rarely, if ever, sleep past 6am, so it's not like we're used to sleeping in.

(Can you imagine someone characterizing snoozing past 6am as "sleeping in"??)

The Duchess wakes up because she's been having these vivid dreams. I love hearing about them and writing them down, even if she embroiders or changes them in the retelling. The past couple of nights, she has been dreaming about frogs - not real frogs, but those cute little plastic froggies that she plays with in the kiddie class that we attend. (Ok, she puts the frogs on her head and then "sneezes" them off, which is one of her favorite activities) (We are easily amused here). Last night, in her dream, the frogs were playing with her in her room with her toys and were being good. The previous night, the frogs were being bad and she had to give them a time out. I find this hilarious.

Clearly, the Duchess is experiencing what my college Psych 101 professor called a "day residue," which is, as you can probably figure out, bits and pieces of things that happened to you recently that emerge in your dream. According to the prof, the day residue doesn't really mean anything, it's just stuff that was kind of sitting around your brain and getting sucked in to your main microprocessors.

So I think about this a lot because I too have been having some unusally vivid dreams lately. The one that sticks out most in my mind is from the other night. I was sitting on a beach with Honey (I'm not sure if the Grump and the Duchess were also there, they may have been but I didn't see them or interact for this segment). We were facing down the beach, and it was a calm, sunny day. I had a balloon in my hand and the wind was tugging at it, so I let it go. I told Honey, "It will probably pop."

This was so clear in my head and so mystifying to me, that I needed to think about it. I found a dream analysis website called www.dreammoods.com that had all kinds of interesting details on it, and basically, I had a stress dream. Naturally, only I seem to be able to take a day at the beach and make it stressful.

I am not entirely certain how best to interpret it, but basically the location signifies an intersection between the rational (beach) and irrational (water) state of mind. Looking at the water signifies major changes I'm facing, and looking down the beach means I'm seeking to return to that which is familiar. The baby can mean lots of things, but perhaps it means an attempt to return to innocence, or the need to take baby steps towards a goal. And weirdly, the balloon is not a cheery little trifle - it signifies "frustrating conditions" that I am trying to "rise above." A balloon that pops "symbolizes an unrealized goal or dream."

So should I be freaked out? There are a couple of situations in my life that I wish were better, so I'm wondering if the dream was me subconsciously working one or both of them out. Or, maybe it is just a "day residue" - we are all about to go to the beach for a week's vacation really soon, and I've been thinking about that a lot (at least, wondering how I'm going to pack for it).

Do you ever spend any time thinking about your dreams? Or your kids' dreams? What do they tell you?