I don't think they're sugarplums.

Cripes, I hate it when the Peanut wigs out in her sleep.

We still keep a baby monitor in the basement for when we're watching a movie and wouldn't be able to hear the girls if they called us from two floors up. One night we were watching something... a thriller, I wish I could remember which... and I heard the Peanut call "Mommy! MOMMY!" So up I dashed, and when I reached her, she was standing in the middle of the room, completely still, eyes wide open but unfocused. She turned her head to me, unblinking, and whispered, "something's coming... closer... closer..." 

Yikes. I have read enough Stephen King and watched enough creepy psychodrama to be thoroughly freaked out by this. "What's coming, Peanut? What is it?" No response, just those huge open eyes. I put her back to bed. She had no memory of it the next morning, but of course I will never be able to forget it. She's talked in her sleep since she could talk at all, and her sudden utterances can be jarring, but that's one for the record books.

As a toddler she used to wake up in the middle of the night in tears, unable to explain why she was awake or upset. Other times she'd wake furious and insist something was wrong with her toe, or her foot. Probably it had pins and needles from how she'd been lying on it. This kept happening from time to time, always her foot hurt, and there was no making it better. You just had to wait till she drifted off again.

A few weeks after "something's coming..." we heard "Mommy! MOMMY!" then silence. Again, "MOMMY!" and I went upstairs, sort of dreading it. This time she was still in bed, but propped up on her elbows, eyes open. I checked for all the obvious things... fever, wet bed... nothing. Phew. But she wouldn't respond to me. She'd recoil when I touched her, thrash around like crazy, and yell "MOMMY!" really loudly even right after I said "What?! I'M RIGHT HERE!" After several minutes of this she sat up and said "Mommy! Some people just STAND THERE, when you need them to MOVE!" then lay back down and fell quietly asleep.

It's true you know. Some people just stand there, when you need them to move. 

Last night, I heard her yelling the Bean's name. "Bean! BEAN! BEAN!!!" I got upstairs to find her jerking around in bed, completely agitated, not responding to my voice, though she stopped yelling for her sister and started yelling for me. She'd be still for two seconds and then jerk around and yell again.

I never know whether to wake her up, or wait it out. But the more this happens, the more inclined I am to wake her up as much as I can. She can't seem to shake herself out of whatever has her upset, and it's clearly not fun.

This time I sat her up and talked to her gently but firmly, in a serious voice, saying her name, and to wake up enough to answer. "Mommy! I don't know why I can't keep still!" she said. "I keep having... visions?" (Oh lord.) "It's hard to explain... everything is going really slowly, and I don't know why!" "Are you awake, or asleep, Peanut?" "Mostly asleep..." and she lay back down and was out cold.

Visions.  Something coming closer... closer. I think I liked it better when it was just her foot.

OMG I never finished that paper! Oh wait, yes I did. 20 YEARS AGO.

So I dreamed, once again, that I had failed to write my thesis/complete an assignment/pass a class in graduate school, and never finished my degree.  And once again, finding consciousness through the thick fog of that tiresome anxiety, I had to remind myself that the degree has been mine almost two decades now, and at this point, nobody's going to call to rescind it, and even so, who the fuck cares?  I have children of my own sleeping down the hall. I have years of professional experience behind me.  I'm a home-owning, tax-paying, advice-giving, issue-voting, blog-writing, major appliance-buying, opinion-spouting, child-rearing grownup for heaven's sake, and not intimidated by much anymore, at that.  Except, evidently, in my sleep.

So I'm wondering:  How old do I have to be not to have these stupid school-related anxiety dreams?  Is there some internal switch I can flip that'll turn them off - or will I wake occasionally as a little old grandmother, momentarily convinced that I still have to turn in some wretched paper or exam?  Because if I can just convince my subconscious that, yo, I am too dang old to still be pulling this crap on myself, then that would be one aspect of the tedious midlife crisis I could happily embrace.

yawn

I feel like I didn't sleep at all last night, but went to bed and watched movies till dawn.  I had very bizarre dreams that I can't repeat, fraught with disturbing imagery and emotion.  Suffice to say that Dr. Freud would nod knowingly, and the sooner I forget them altogether, the better.

There were some less unsettling dreams as well, one of which co-starred George Clooney, but, sadly, is rated G.  In it, we were riding in the back of a limousine together.  I was the writer/creator of a high profile dramatic television series, and he was, well, George Clooney.  We weren't working together, just sharing a ride to the same work-related destination.  The limo was cruising alongside either the Cape Cod Canal, or the Connecticut River; there's a riverside stretch of country road in Hadley, Massachusetts that turns up in my dreams a lot, it might've been there.  Our conversation was easy and pleasant, as between friends who've worked in the same business for many years.  We got where we were going and said seeya.  I proceeded to go see a tedious children's play in which none of the actors spoke in a voice over a whisper, and I thought, "oh God, not another one of these."

And... that was it.  George Clooney appears in my dreams, and that was it.   Just another mommy dream, with its wistfulness for paths not taken.  If you're going to have a George Clooney dream, folks, make it more interesting than that one, mkay?

Give me liberty, or... actually, just give me liberty. Please.

So, last week was school vacation.  For the last few days of the break, we had seven (7) overnight guests at the Sandyshoes house.  I don't have a huge house, so it was sort of an ambitious undertaking, but it went quite well.  The guests are lovely people and we were happy to have them stay with us.

As happens after hosting houseguests, I have extra sheets and towels to wash, in addition to the regular household laundry, which I do all on Mondays because I hate having it drawn out for the whole week. 

Sunday night, for the first time in -- 3 years?  4 years?  ever? -- the Peanut wet her bed.  So, more sheets need washing, plus PJs, a duvet cover, mattress pad, and a down comforter.   Not good fun, but not a big deal, until:  Monday morning, my washing machine was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the bearings.  

Monday afternoon, Mr. Sandy wished me luck and left for the west coast, to hobnob with his fellow oceanographers at an annual conference.

With nothing to lose, I kept running the washer until it truly blew its innards.  Laundry sorting became triage, as every load could have been its last.  I got a fair bit done until it well and truly quit, which it of course did mid-cycle, and refuses to pump out.  So I have a load of wet soapy sheets in there.  Not bad though, and we did get 10 years out of it, which I'm told is unusual these days, although why that should be I don't know.  Are new machines crap, or do people just abuse them?  Whatever.  We need a new one.  

As of Monday evening we appeared to be in good shape.  Most of the laundry was done, the rest could wait until we get a new machine after Mr. Sandy gets back. With a husband like him, I don't go hiring people to install things.  So, not a big deal, until:  This morning at 4:30 the Peanut wet her bed again.  Now I have mattress pad, sheets, PJs, duvet, comforter to wash again -- and no washer.  

I gave her a bath and put her to sleep in the Bean's bed, and the Bean in with me.  Going back to sleep I didn't feel right.  Stomach thing coming on?  I tried to chalk it up to being woken from a deep sleep, but you know how you can just tell... ugh.

Kids off to school on time this morning but I am feeling wretched, though trying to deny it.  A bowl of Cheerios later I know for sure I have a stomach thing.  Cancelled yoga, cancelled piano (oh I know, boo hoo).  Back to bed with an alarm set to meet the Peanut's bus midday.  For some reason I still thought that an hour's nap would make it all better; it didn't.  Feeling really weak, I drove up the street to pick her up, with a plastic bag on the passenger seat Just In Case.  Back home, immediately to the couch.  I heard the Peanut pulling a stool around the kitchen gathering ingredients for making her own PB&J for lunch ("Mommy I can spread but not cut... is it OK if it isn't in little squares?").  Then she put blankets over me, and popped The Lion King in the VCR.  We set an alarm to wake me to meet the Bean's bus.  I fell asleep sobbing for loving her so much and feeling so bad. 

I had some crazy-ass dreams of  floods and car accidents in the front yard, and someone riding a wheelchair into my living room and hollering that my game of Monopoly is actually hers, and who knows what else. 

Then we drove up the street again to get the Bean, because I still didn't think I could walk the 500 feet, or whatever it is.  Peanut said I seemed a little better to her, which is frankly not saying much, but it's better than nothing.  Somehow I manage to help the Bean "build a weather instrument" for her homework.  My stomach feels rotten and my head hurts.  Need to drink some water.

Later I hear a cry of dismay from the Peanut's room - for the first time since learning to use the toilet, she's wet her pants (and, naturally, the carpet).  So add more pee-soaked clothing to the growing pile.  But of greater concern, I now think there's something really amiss with her.  The on-call nurse says to give her a bath with a cup of white vinegar in it -- although she doesn't know why this would help -- and bring her in to the office in the morning. 

So that's our plan.  White vinegar in the bathwater, check.  Dirty laundry accumulating in a pile until I can think straight about how to deal with it, check.  Get the Peanut to the doctor to see what's up with her bladder.  Drink some water and get myself to bed again, and hope to feel better in the morning.  Somewhere in there I fed the girls dinner.  One advantage to having had a ton of houseguests is that I now have plenty of delicious leftovers. 

In I-wish-it-weren't-related news, there is a laundromat opening in our town soon.  I drove by it today, hoping it was ready for business.  Signs are up... LIBERTY LAUNDRY, with an American flag/Statue of Liberty theme (give us your soiled?)... and the washers appear to be in, but the sign on the door still says COMING SOON.  Not soon enough for me, maybe, but I'm glad to see this business in town.  When I first moved here in '99, I didn't have a washer/dryer in my apartment, and though I usually brought it to the soon-to-be-Mr.-Sandy's house, there was a laundromat in town I could use in a pinch.  It's since gone out of business, and I've been wondering what people do.  LIBERTY LAUNDRY (I think you have to say it in all caps like that) to the rescue. 

Anyhoo.  Here's hoping for a dry overnight for the Peanut, and a settled stomach and decent energy level by the morning for me.  That'll feel like liberty enough.

I hear/The secrets that you keep...

I've written a little bit before about sharing a bed with my daughters. This isn't a routine thing. They've never been inclined (or encouraged) to join us in the middle of the night -- I'll go to them for a bit, if there's a scary storm or something -- or to come romp on our bed in the morning and fall back asleep there. We have been very successful with a Play Quietly In Your Room Until We Are Awake rule. But when we're traveling, it sometimes makes most sense to put one grownup and one child in each of a hotel room's two queen size beds, and at home, if Mr. Sandyshoes is away, I let the girls take turns sleeping in my bed with me.

Last night was the Peanut's turn. At bedtime she hauled in her gear and unpacked: feather and fleece pillows, fleece blanket with duckie, "taggie" blanket, stuffed lambie, stuffed doggies, and her music box. It is a good thing I have a King sized bed.

She arranged everything and fell asleep in no more time than it usually takes her. When I came to bed myself, I saw the taggie blanket had been draped carefully over lambie, and doggie was under the pillow. Peanut often sleeps on her back, limbs out like a capital X, but to my happy surprise, she was on her side and there was plenty of room for me.

We had a peaceful slumber until zero-dark thirty, when she hollered: "NO! You're looking at my cards!" Pause. "I said DON'T!!" We have been playing a lot of Uno at our house lately, so I assume this outburst was directed at her sister. I don't look at her cards, I swear. Yeeesh. Back to sleep.

When we woke at a decent hour, I asked if she remembered any of her dreams. Big smile, then "I dreamed of a bunny eating an apple pie." She had no memory of having loudly relived any injustices suffered during card games. It cracked her up to hear what she'd said.

My college roommate once sat straight up in bed and pronounced "I am a fine connoisseur of hams," then lay right back down and continued sleeping. That's probably the oddest thing I've heard of anyone saying in their sleep. Especially funny because she's Jewish, though not practicing. (Evidently.)

I don't think I talk much in my sleep anymore. I occasionally have crazy animal attack dreams, and thrash and holler until I wake myself. Mr. Sandyshoes has gotten as used to these as a person could be expected to, I guess. It's just what happens sometimes. I keep thinking I'll run out of animals because it's never the same species twice. Weirdest one (though not by far the most violent) was a deer chewing on my elbow.

What are you saying in your sleep?

I am now obligated to leave you with this primo bit of mid-80s pop culture. The hair, the hair!

Top this, friends.

I am recently awoken from a dream in which Owen Wilson was doing bra fittings for me and some friends of mine in my downstairs bathroom. Expertly. He was really good at it.

This was not a sexy thing. I find Owen Wilson to be very funny in his one trick pony kind of way, but I've no interest in seeing him naked.

Still, maybe the man has talents none of us ever imagined.

Yes, I know other people's dreams are boring, but it's what I got going on.

I'm going through one of those times during which I can't seem to get enough sleep, partly because I'm always having crazy dreams like these:

Two nights ago: I had three daughters. There was the Bean, the Peanut and another girl, who in my dream took the form of one of the Bean's real-life classmates. We were on a family vacation in California, and attending some kind of informal outdoor sporting event. The girls were going off to sit on their own, and I was telling them have fun, and where to meet us later. Bean and Peanut ran off, and the middle daughter (she was younger than the Bean and older than the Peanut, an impossibility in real life) gave me a quick kiss and took off with them. I turned to my husband, alarmed, and said, "I have no memories of her as a baby!" and he said "me neither." I could vaguely recall having been pregnant with her, but it was like remembering a story I'd read about someone else. I felt terribly sad at not really knowing this child, and horrified to be that detached from my own daughter. How could I know the oldest and youngest girls so well, feel so closely bonded to them, and completely blank on the whole history of the middle one? Yet I knew I must've had her, because there she was, calling me Mommy just like the other two.

Upsetting!

Later that same dream, the three (!) girls and I were asleep back at the hotel, and Mr. S. finally came in at 4:00 AM. He'd been out with friends, and told me that one of his friends had asked him to play soccer with them, and he'd said sure, why not. He never gets time with his friends, he said. His life is work, and home, and the girls, and never any time out with friends! Fine, I said, but you don't even like soccer. Then I realized two things: that he was having an affair with this friend of his, and that I didn't care. If you want to play soccer, go ahead, I said. But I don't see why you had to drag us all to California to do it.

Yeesh! Granted, I don't think of infidelity in the absolute terms I once did -- older and wiser, I can see how it comes about in some relationships, and why some couples don't make it a deal breaker -- but still. If Mr. S. were having an affair, it's safe to say I would not be wholly indifferent.

Then last night: I was living with my parents in the house I grew up in. One morning we opened the front door to find that our neighbor across the street (nobody I ever knew in real life) had begun building himself a three-car garage with an apartment above and a cupola on top, right in our front yard. It cast a great shadow over our house. The neighbor was sitting outside in his car, supervising the construction. I was furious, but my mother insisted we couldn't say anything to him about it. BALLS! I yelled. I HATE THIS! I stormed out of the house and up to the guy's car. He rolled down the window, and I sputtered to him about the building. "What, you don't like it? Fine. It comes down. Brick by brick, I'll take it all down" he said, full of mock surprise that I didn't think it was the best thing ever. My mother still chided me for talking to him, and I yelled at her, SCREW THAT! I'M TIRED OF NOT SAYING WHAT I THINK! and then marched away up the street.


Well. Who the heck knows what that's all about. Maybe my inner teenager still has some hollering to do.

Someone said that dreams are us "whispering in our own ears." What are you saying to yourself these days? Are you making any sense, or just churning up emotion, or both?

Restless

Oh, I get it. It's only a blog if you, well, post every so often.

Right.

Well, I've been tired. Every night I go to bed (too late, yes, but still) expecting some form of sleep to occur. I do fall asleep eventually. Then I have these long involved dreams, and in the morning I don't feel the least bit rested.

Last night, for example:

I was in grad school, writing a combination novel/thesis which I had to submit to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. I knew it was incomplete and utter crap, but I was hoping they couldn't tell because, well, they're actors, even if smart ones. Which isn't to dis actors, just that it wasn't a thesis in acting.

Then I was riding on the back of a motorcycle, being driven to a party by a man I don't know, but who is kind and stops when I am feeling too dizzy and scared to continue. After a rest I get past my fear of riding on the bike, and we go on. We ride past a deli, outside of which men on ladders are putting up giant letters to spell "HOUSTON," but they're spelling it wrong.

We get to the party, which is hosted by a guy who makes fancy, whimsical signs out of scrap wood. My college roommate is there, doing some sort of project with glitter glue. She's looking for a color called Emerald Square. I sort through dozens of shades of green... how 'bout Emerald Triangle? Moss? Olivine?... there seems always to be one more tube of green, but I can't find the only one she needs.

Still at this gathering of kooky artist types, I somehow agree to or get suckered into helping someone's son get to the school bus every morning. It soon becomes clear that I also have to locate, dress, and feed him every time, and he's always lost in some irresponsible household mayhem. Also there are always cars blocking his family's driveway at crazy angles.

And with that, I wake.

So after all that subconscious anxiety plays out in various scenarios -- last nights' at least lacked wild animals or serial killers -- I just feel weird in the mornings these days.

My kingdom for a couple nights' dreamless slumber.

Even her nightmares are cute.

My Peanut woke at 4:30 this morning, sobbing and calling me. When I got to her room she was sitting up in bed, tears streaming. I did the routine pad-down... no fever, no vomit, no poop, no pee. All clear physically - ohphew. I climbed in bed with her, and she held on for dear life.

"What is it, sweetie?"
"I want ALL the Muppet Show monsters to go BACK. IN. THE MUPPET SHOW!"

Hm. Evidently there has been an escape.

"Did you have a dream there were Muppet monsters out of the Muppet Show?"
Nods. "I want them to go BACK IN THE MUPPET SHOW!!!"
"I hear you. You were dreaming, Peanut. Muppet monsters can't come out of the Muppet Show. What were they doing in your dream?"
"There was a green one, swimming in a PUDDLE in our DRIVEWAY!"
"It'd be hard to swim in a puddle."
"It's a BIG one!"
"Or a small monster."
"A BIG PUDDLE!!!"
"OK. Were there other monsters doing something?"
"They were in our garage looking for the big bicycles!"
"They wanted to ride our bicycles?"
Nods.
"Those sound like monsters that want to have fun."
"One was swimming!"
"I remember. Peanut, those monsters aren't real, are they."
Shakes head.
"You know that even on the Muppet Show, the monsters are just toys that people play with to be funny."
Nods. Eyes closing.
"Are you ready to go back to sleep now?"
Nods. Grabs her little lambie and makes it kiss me on the cheek.

I'm dismissed... but awake. Sigh.

This morning we found all the bicycles where they belong. No harm done.

Out of it

Hi. I've been out of it. But not as out of it as my poor mother, who had back surgery on Monday and has since been loopy on pain meds which have not always been working. The short version: it was bad. It's slowly getting better. There's a long road ahead.

In the meantime, I'm going to start a post category for "dreams." I remember a Dilbert cartoon in which the first frame has Alice talking in excruciating detail to someone (intern Asok?) about a dream she had; in the second frame, Asok (yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Asok) says there is nothing more excruciatingly dull than listening to another person talk about their dreams; in the third frame, Alice is gesturing animatedly and saying "but this was no ordinary grape, it was a seedless!..." and Asok is trying not to slit his wrists with the staple remover thingy. Or something like that.

None of the probable truth of that sentiment will stop me from relating this dream of the Bean's. She came into the bathroom this morning in her sheep PJs, arms outstretched, bottom lip quivering, holding back tears. I held her on my lap and she told me she'd had a bad dream, in which "we were in a parking lot, and [Peanut] took some steps backwards, and a red pickup truck was coming out of a parking place and it hit her, and she fell down. Then a man came out of the truck, picked up [Peanut], put her in the truck and took her away."

Poor Bean! She was so upset, it just broke my heart. I know precisely how she felt -- her dream sounded a lot like the kind I sometimes have. The kind I have to work out of my system by crying in the shower till I can face the day without holding my babies so close they'll wonder what the heck's the matter with me and why I'm squashing them and sobbing.

So we tiptoed into the Peanut's room to watch her sleep, so the Bean could see she was fine. That seemed to help. Then she was all about pretending to have blue hair with her PJ top pulled back over her head.

Me? I'd just woken from a dream in which I was flying around the country with Barack Obama, managing his campaign. Won't I be proud if he wins!