Bad Dream

Wow, I had a bad one this morning! It was my first bad motherhood dream.

Here’s a little background: The Baby got up at 4:44 a.m. and would not go back to sleep. I sucked out his nose and fed him a bottle to relax him. He had other ideas. Finally, I just decided to let him work it out himself. He’ll usually cry for a few minutes and go back to sleep. He was crying for three minutes, and quiet for 10, so I didn’t know whether to get back up or what. After about four cycles of this, and desperate thoughts of fleeing to the Caribbean to tend bar, I decided to get him and lay with him in the den on the futon. It didn’t matter, he just cried and tried to struggle away. He either was upset that I wasn’t breaking out the toys or desperately wanted to go back to sleep and couldn’t. Clearly I wasn’t helping matters. I put him back down, gave him his lovey, patted his toushy and went back to lay in darkness dreaming of white sand and steel drums. It wasn’t too long until The Baby fell back asleep, so I also was able to sleep for another 20 minutes.

The dream that I had contains some very common dreamscapes and themes for me: being at the location of my first job (a steakhouse that I waitressed at on and off from the ages of 15-21), my husband not listening to me (in real life he does!), me being aware that I am only dreaming, the beach, and tides that rush in unexpectedly. I know, you are probably twirling your finger around your ear while pointing at the monitor like Pump Mama is coo-coo. Maybe she is.

Anyway, on to the dream. I was standing in Western Sizzlin (the steakhouse). I was aware that I was dreaming and I was thinking how awesome it was to revisit the place where I worked for so long. Everything was nice and organized. I went outside and walked under and underpass and up a hill and into a parking lot (this is total dreamscape, it doesn’t exist). At this point I stopped being aware that it was a dream and I had The Baby with me. My husband and his coworkers were there. I was trying to talk to him and he was busy talking to his coworkers and pretty much ignoring me. I said something snarky to him and walked back toward the underpass. I heard waves crashing and looked behind me and there was a pretty beach. All of sudden the tide came rushing in and a little water splashed up on to The Baby’s face. I hurried to the underpass. When I rushed down the steps I realized that it was flooded from top to bottom and we were under water completely and had to swim to the other side. While I was under, it occurred to me that The Baby didn’t know how to hold his breath. When I reached down to pinch his nose and clamp his mouth, he gasped in a mouth full of water. I was swimming with my hands over his nose and mouth not knowing if it was too late. That’s when the alarm went off. Thank goodness.

I’ve felt a little sad all day. :-(