1 Mother 2 Another

Maddie’s always had vivid dreams
– she spent part of her twos and threes battling bad dreams a
few times a week, and now has extraordinary, fanciful dreams with
some regularity. And feels the need to share them with us.


In excruciating, time-bending detail.


Here’s a recent sample from this morning's breakfast
table:

“So last night, I had a bad dream.
And by bad dream, I mean a sad dream. Because sad dreams can be bad
dreams too, just like scary dreams can be bad dreams. It’s
like they’re different, but part of the same family of
dreams. Anyway, I dreamt that I was with my friends Kyle and Hudson
in the woods near a pond and playground, and there was a bear
monster there. Not a pond monster, like in Cora’s book, but a
bear monster. Like a bear, but also a monster. And not a mean one
or scary one, just a sad one. Just a sad bear monster. So we were
near a jungle gym, and it was about this high (shows with her
hands) well, maybe about this high (changes her hands fractionally)
or this high (infinitesimal adjustment back). And we saw a hole in
the woods and walked towards it and found the pond. And the pond
wasn’t very big – it was about this size (holds her
hand up in a quarter-sized shape) which is really small for a pond.
Well, no, maybe it was a bit bigger – see our patio out in
the side yard? Maybe it was that big. Ok, look at the side yard
patio and draw a line around the edge about a book’s size
away from it, and cut that much out, and that’s how big the
pond was. Anyway . ..”


Do you notice (if you’re still reading) that nothing has yet
HAPPENED in the dream?


I try to pay attention, really I do. I listen and follow and nod,
but I can’t help it – my eyes start to glaze over and I
stop listening at some point. And about ten seconds later,
she’ll say, “What do you think so far?”


“Wow, that’s really
interesting/exciting/scary/cool,” I’ll say, depending
on her storytelling tone.


I’m sure these dreams won’t come to an end any time
soon, but hopefully her storytelling style will, um, tighten up a
bit soon and the dreams will be more interesting (and shorter) for
the audience.


I can hope.