Dream, Dream, Dream

One of the morning rituals the kids and I have is a talk about what dreams they had the previous night. On the basis of their answers, I strongly suspect that they aren't reporting with a great deal of accuracy. Either that or they have an astounding psychic link while sleeping. For example:

"So, Sean, did you have any dreams last night?"

"I dreamed I was in a rocket ship and flew all the way to Pluto!"

"Wow. That must have been a really long trip. Allie, how about you?"

"Well," (Allie begins many many sentences with "Well...") "I dreamed I flew all the way to MARS in my CAR!"

If I overlook the dream discussion in the morning, Allie reminds me later in the day: "Mom! You forgot to ask us about our dreams!" (How is it that she has already perfected a nagging, recriminating tone at age 3?)

Even if they aren't necessarily describing their dreams, I love these little insights into what is capturing their imagination at that moment.

Most of the time these conversations are one-sided. Every now and then Sean will ask me what my dreams were. Sometimes I just say that I can't remember, sometimes I make something up. And sometimes I'm tempted to be completely honest. "Well, it was a classic anxiety dream. You know the type? Where you are in college and you're trying to get to a class except that you don't even know the name of the class or the time or the professor or the building and you can't find your schedule and you keep trying to get to the office where they keep the schedules but it turns out that office has been turned into some sort of fortress/amusement park ride? That's what I dreamt about last night."

I can see why they don't ask me about my dreams very often.