Dreams and Wishes

Dreams are nothing more than wishes
And a wish is just a dream
You wish to come true....

That's from a song I like off the "You've Got Mail" soundtrack. I thought I would share some of my dreams and wishes with you in these wee hours of the morning, when my bonnie wee son is making his presence so very plainly known to me, keeping me from a sound sleep and preventing any kind of possible "dreams." (For some reason, this kid doesn't want me lying down right now. Sitting up is the only way to go! After I write this, I'm going to try to fall asleep in hubby's recliner. We'll see how that goes.)

On nights when I have slept soundly, I have had some interesting dreams indeed. Once, I dreamt that I was giving birth, and as the doctor held the baby up for me to see for the first time, the baby had my husband's face! His 33-year old face, with glasses and goatee. It was this infant's body with an adult's head. Then he grinned at me with the same grin my husband has and waved at me with one finger, the way my husband does. It was kind of cute, but weird at the same time.

Another time I had a dream that I was conversing intelligently with my infant son. There we were, changing his diaper, having a perfectly grown-up conversation about something serious and complicated, like politics and recycling.

I've had a number of baby dreams, and in only one of them did the baby behave like a normal baby. He was always talking, or walking, or doing something far more advanced than he should have been doing. Is this wishful thinking on my part to have a child who is highly skilled, or am I in denial that I will be parenting a child? Am I going to expect him to grow up too fast? Or am I just worrying too much about a silly dream?

Speaking of wishful thinking, as I lay in bed unable to sleep on nights such as these, I find myself imagining what life will be like with a child. I often feel that I am still a child myself, and I am overcome with this dreadful fear that I'm not ready. Other times, I am so excited and thrilled to be welcoming a child into the world. I find myself imagining my son at different ages. I see his first day of school, I see him playing catch with his daddy in the front yard, I see him learning to swim. Then he's an awkard teenager with pimples and greasy hair and is trying to get the cute girl across the street to go out with him, then he's the star football player at his high school. Before I know it, my unborn son is grown up and has a wife and child of his own, and I am a grandmother with lots of grandbabies running around the house at Christmastime. I love these little flights of fancy. My life as I know it is about to end, but a beautiful new season is about to begin. And as it is with the changing of seasons, we often mourn the passing of the wonderful time we have just had, but simultaneously welcome the incredible change that is about to take place.

Dreams and wishes. Wishes and dreams.