Dreams and Nightmares

I've always been a very vivid dreamer. As a kid I had a reoccurring dream about not being able to find my brother and sister and another about riding a bike that flies. My most strange dreams are the ones where no matter what was going on in the dream, I'd be observing while sitting on the toilet with my pants down trying to get the job done. I continued to have those dreams almost every night well in to adulthood and actually only stopped in the last couple of years. I've done lots of research trying to figure out what that one means but the toilet dream doesn't seem to be in any dream dictionary that I've found.

Anyway, that brings me to my newest dream trend. Lately, I've been dreaming about Oliver dying. I've had three so far, about once every couple of weeks and each one is worse than the last. I actually don't remember the circumstances of the first one, just the feeling it left me with. The second had him being run over by the police truck driven by one of the other members. In the most recent one he was sick with something and was going to die and he was talking about committing suicide so he didn't have to go through it. I was screaming and crying that we had so little time left with him and I didn't want him to cheat us out of that time. With that I woke up and was literally sobbing in my sleep.

As you can imagine these dreams are really disturbing to me. I'm not a doom and gloom type of person or a paranoid mom so worrying about losing my kids is something that never crosses my mind. I guess I have a 'things like that don't happen to me' type of attitude so I'm shocked that my subconscious is thinking about it.

There is a part of me that keeps wondering if this is an omen of some sort but since dreams are never about the obvious, I don't think that's it. When I really analyze it I think that my brain is trying to tell me to appreciate Oliver more. I'll admit I'm struggling a bit with all the frustrations that go along with being the mom of a two year old. I'm sure he's a normal kid and he's just doing what two year olds do but I'm not always handling it well. I think I'm feeling guilty about how I treat him sometimes and it's manifesting in my dreams. When he's doing his best job at challenging me I can have a hard time keeping a lid on my emotions. I tend to yell more than I should and sometimes I say things that makes me cringe afterwords. It's easy to think that it's ok because he's young and he doesn't understand but I can see that even if he doesn't get the words, the tone makes an impression. It's true, sometimes he deserves the tone but sometimes my lack of patience is the reason he hears it and that's not fair.

In the last couple of days I've been trying to do better. When my temper starts to bubble I just think about how those dreams felt and it makes it much easier to cool off. I'm hugging a little more, saying I love you more often and trying to have a more zen outlook on motherhood. The nature of a two year old is to be frustrating much of the time but I don't want to have those types of regrets should the worst happen. And not being so angry makes day-to-day life much nicer.

By the way: I figured before I published this I should maybe do some dream research and I have found some websites that say I'm right on the money. Now if only I could find something about that toilet thing....


 

And then there was one

If you are a long time reader you may know right away what this photo means.

If you're not, this should clarify things for you.

On July 26th, 2009  we opened our sea lift crate and instead of the 12 cans of corn I thought we ordered, we found 12 CASES of 12 cans of corn. It's taken us 21 months of eating it, giving it away and selling some more to get to the very last can.

Good riddance? Believe it or not we're not sick of it. It's one of the few veggies I can get my boys to eat so I stay with what's easy. I actually bought some at the Northern today.

I Hear Easter Eggs

It's early easter morning. Oliver is searching the house for loot.

Oliver: Mommy Shhhhhhhhh. I can hear the eggs.
Me: Really? What are they saying Oliver?
Oliver: Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!

Then he laughs like a crazy person.....?!?

Happy Easter everyone!

Easter Crafts- Day 4

Well, this is it, the last day. The only thing missing was the Easter Basket so we made one. However, it was pretty much a mommy made craft since I covered the bread basked with the tissue paper, fashioned the handle from a piece of plastic and punched out the flowers. I tried to get O to glue the flowers on with me but he lost interest quickly and just wanted to color the eggs again.

I hope he's more enthused tomorrow morning when the basket is used to gather all the loot the bunny leaves behind. Happy Easter everyone!

Easter Crafts- Day 3

I was a little nervous about today's craft because I wasn't sure if a two year old and real eggs were a good combination. My original plan was to poke the ends and blow the eggs out before decorating them but my mother suggested hard boiling them. Mmm, I see she's done this with a two year old before.

After they were boiled I soaked them in food coloring to dye the shell and then we decorated them with markers. I was really happy with my egg but O decided it needed more so he went ahead and added his personal touch to it. In the end they are all masterpieces and are now in the fridge so they don't go bad. They are going in to a potato salad at some point this weekend.

Oh... and my fear of having a toddler handle real eggs? Well, only one got cracked, and guess who dropped it?

ME! 

Easter Crafts- Day 2

Today we made bunny ears (thanks Susan for the idea). Things went much smoother since there were no sparkles involved. I heard all of you who commented on yesterday's post, I'm now putting a moratorium on sparkles till he's much older.

Anyway, O loved the ears and hopped around all day long. He's starting to get excited for the chocolate treats the bunny will be bringing him.

Easter Crafts- Day 1

In order to get O ready for The Easter Bunny I'm doing a craft with him every day. It's a challenge since he has the attention span of a gnat. All he wanted to do was dump the sprinkles everywhere which he ended up accomplishing since I gave up trying to give him direction.

Tomorrow: Bunny ears.