These Dreams

OK First I must tell you about the dream I had last week because I thought I would remember it forever but just yesterday I realized it was fading. In 20 years, the archivists need to be able to find this post and say, “Aha! That’s when it all turned around.”

My mom and I were walking up Davie St. in Vancouver and I was hungry (this is a recurring dream-theme, I suspect because in real life I am hungry all night and all day but am too lazy to get up in the night & get a snack. I know. I KNOW. But it’s two floors down! and back up again! and the baby wakes up when he smells toast!) so we went into Panago Pizza & I saw the best pizza ever: it was layered crust, meatballs, sauce, cheese, crust, it was about 5 layers of pizza. It was incredible. So I ordered a slice. The counterperson went into the back where the ovens are. She came back a few minutes later with a grey kitten.

This is not pizza, I said.
No, she said. But it’s a robot kitten!
But I ordered pizza.
Yes, but this robot kitten is programmed to work for 3 months! After 3 months, it stops working and then you have a nice kitten for your mantle! That’ll be $13, please.

I paid, took the kitten (which was very cute) and we continued on up Davie St. Still hungry.

This morning I was having a dream I was at Dairy Queen. I wanted a Peanut Buster Parfait. The surly teenage girl behind the counter was all, OK, whatEVER and then, as I waited, the entire staff of the store paraded out. Uh, where’s my PBP? I asked. Oh, we have a staff meeting, answered the teenage boy manager. OK, but I ordered a PBP, I said. HERE, said surly teenage girl. She tossed the ice cream on the counter and said, that’s $29. What? I said, It’s $2.99! Only if you buy 12, she said. If you only buy one? It’s $29.

What is up with the food and money themes? Any amateur psych out there?

Anyway, I was saved having to pay $29 for a glorified ice cream sundae because Trombone was wailing his head off and woke me up.

Here’s the thing: I agree that it can be neat to eavesdrop on the neighbours with our baby monitor. However, it would also be neat if I could eavesdrop on my own child in my own home, like I paid the (OK, not very much) money for. Turns out that’s not possible. Both channels belong to the neighbours. I guess their monitor has a stronger signal.

I don’t WANT to hear what their kids are doing. I liked being able to say, “Oh, our neighbours have 2 kids under 4 and I never hear a blessed thing.” I don’t want to hear their kid coughing for half an hour at 2 am. I don’t want to hear them disciplining their son in the evening. But above all, I don’t want to wake up to my own kid screaming his head off because I was busy dreaming about ice cream and didn’t hear his earlier I’m-sort-of-awake grunting. I have the damn monitor so I’ll hear the grunting. (our bedroom is on the 3rd floor, his on the 2nd) When he wakes up at 8 he’ll grunt & chatter for a while. And if you get there within about 15 or 20 minutes, he is the sweetest, smiliest, happiest baby ever. Not today. Today I was dreaming about ice cream.

To try next: repositioning the receiving end in his bedroom. And/or when he goes back to sleep at 7 for that last hour, rather than trying to squeeze out an extra hour of sleep for myself, I should get up & have an hour of time – when I can drink my coffee, eat some breakfast and hear the grunting when it happens. That’s what I did yesterday and things were far smoother. Smooth like Dairy Queen.

PS: Stupid monitor manufacturers who use inferior technology for their cheap ass walkie talkies? You done been smote.