The Dream World of Babies

I wonder what joys my babies have when they are sleeping. What great heights of accomplishment they experience, what adventures face them. How they sort out the information that bombards them day by day.

I wonder what kind of terror follows them through the night. I worry that they are scared of things I can't make better. Alone, crying in their rooms in that place between sleep and awake where everything is scary.

I worry about this and am so sad for them when they are scared at night and yet can't talk about it seriously just now. I think I saw a brief glimpse of my baby's nightmare world and it is making me laugh. The poor thing, not quite two yet, registered sheer terror on her face and ran crying from the object of her fright. And I am laughing about it. More precisely I had to jump online and write about it.

Both chicklets were sitting on mommy's big bed playing. The older of them had a bear for a baby and the younger one wanted a baby as well. Now that is a wish easily granted in our house, with its two generations and uncountable species of babies. My littlest girl slid off the bed and followed me as I went to get her a baby. The first one at hand was cabbage patch kid. Clean and in good condition, but vintage. Called Sheldon Allen. Usually this baby, being a new-born model with beans in his tatooed bottom, is a favorite.

I held poor Sheldon Allan out to the baby and she burst into tears. "No!" she cried out, "No bite my ears, no baby bite my ears!!" She ran from mommy and Sheldon in real terror of the ear biting bean bag baby doll.

Being the sensitive caring mom I am, I chased her with it, saying, "Ohm, ohm, ohm" which is the best I can do to spell the mommy-eat-the-baby noise. I was, of course, trying to make light so she wouldn't be scared. But she only cried harder (duh.) The poor thing was truly scared of the ear-biter. I apologized with many kisses and set her gently back up on the big bed. Then I gave her her favorite squishy ducky for a baby. Crisis, well, not averted, but made a little better anyway.

So dreams. Since that particular doll doesn't have a bite function, it must have been a dream.

The poor child. And yet I am still laughing.

I hope that my night-terror compassion returns at some point. I like feeling sad when they are sad and making them better with gently snuggles. I don't like laughing at them. (But really, it was awful funny.)