Sleep to Dream
Our little girl is finally sleeping more in her own bed and room than in mine. Of course, the benefits of this are great! I can put away laundry or read or just basically be in my bedroom and bathroom after she goes to sleep. I can toss and turn and get comfortable without a little body snuggled up against me. (I’ve never been a sleep-snuggler. Give me some space, please.) I can get up in the middle of the night or in the morning without fear of waking her when I move away. And finally, we know that having a little baby in our room won’t bother her sleep, either. I don’t know if this little boy will want to sleep with us the way she did, but at least now he can. While I’m a big proponent of co-sleeping, I’d be just fine if he was happy sleeping in his own little space, as in a crib or bassinet only a couple feet away from me.
But, when you’ve had your little one so close to you for so long, there are a few things you miss. One thing that I miss is always knowing she is safe and sound. I have to tell myself that her room is right next to ours, and the doors are just a few feet away, and that nothing is going to happen to her while she is in there rather than with me. But sometimes I still worry.
The other night I had a dream that someone was trying to take her from me. As in snatch her. The situation was nonsensical, and so this didn’t carry any feeling of specific warning (although I do believe that dreams can have the power of being visions, prophesies, or portents of danger). Right before I woke up I was screaming and threatening to kill this person and was about to succeed on that threat, but the adrenaline rush startled me awake. It felt like I was gaining super-human strength, a sensation almost like I was the Hulk losing my temper and gaining huge muscles all over my body. I felt like I could do anything I wanted. I have never felt that way before.
I used to have nightmares a lot, so after spending some sleepless nights dealing with them myself, my husband told me I could always wake him up if I had a bad dream and needed to talk about it, so that was the first thing I did. After getting it off my chest, I was left to try to calm down enough to go back to sleep. However, I was worrying because Jane wasn’t right there next to me. I couldn’t see that she was alright, so I had to get up, go check on her, and then check her window and all the doors. All was well, but I still worried. So I prayed for peace and comfort and finally was able to settle off to sleep for a few more hours.
But before falling asleep, I woke my husband up again and told him that I wanted him to teach my how to use his handgun.
