...it was something in the soda

I've heard before that pregnant women sometimes tend to have bizarre dreams, but last night was beyond bizarre. One strange dream after another, followed by a rude awakening (Al's alarm) and a rude stay-awakening (my dog, who wouldn't settle down again after hearing Al's alarm). And so I'm up, with less sleep than I intended to get. But I'm told that's the life of a mother, so...

My dreams started off with dreams of my baby. My newborn looked quite familiar, seeing as how he was half-Chinese and twenty-some pounds (of course, this might have something to do with me seeing Dennis' and Cathy's son Michael, who was born last May, last night). For some reason, I had to leave him at my parents' church with my mother. When I came back, they (whomever "they" are) had hooked my son up to my mother with an IV so that he was being fed by her blood. I felt horrible bringing it up, but I had to ask if my son could get the cancer my mom had by being fed her blood. Mom hadn't thought of it and was a bit alarmed, one man (possibly Buster from Arrested Development, or a character from a Bones episode I watched recently) said there was "absolutely nothing to worry about" since that was not the way cancer was transmitted, and someone else (I don't even think this person appeared in the dream) said it was a huge concern and got the IV line switched from my mother to me immediately.

That dream led to another bizarre dream. I pulled my parents' old white station wagon into my friend's parents' garage. I had to do this several times, and it was scary because as soon as you pulled into the garage it (the garage) shot up into the air about three stories like it was some giant elevator. The garage door remained open when it did this, and the garage tilted about forty-five degrees so that the open garage door was facing down. Only when you had parked and gotten out of the car did the garage begin to lower. The last time I parked, I did it perfectly, pulling in frontwards and doing a fancy brake/turning thing like they do in movie car chases so I ended up facing the open garage door. (This would have been impossible since it was a two-car garage with another car already in it, but it was a dream.) I pulled on the emergency brake, opened the car door and the garage lowered. But a beautiful, big, pink flowering plant on a plant stand appeared in front of my car and I knew I had to put it somewhere in their already-full backyard patio/garden. I picked it up and carried it out of the garage and a chipmunk ran out of it up onto my shoulder. I was worried about placing the plant somewhere where it would both look good and not be knocked over by the wind, so although the chipmunk hidden somewhere in my hair on my shoulder was freaking me out (they are rodents, after all), I couldn't do anything about it. I finally set the plant down in the perfect spot and the chipmunk ran off of my shoulder seeming all grateful. But as I headed back toward the garage, a baby chipmunk (to my mind; it was actually a tiny whitish, pinkish mouse) wouldn't leave me alone. I decided that I would have to reunite it with the other chipmunk to get it to stop bothering me. As I delivered it to its mother(?)/sibling(?), several guinea pigs appeared at my feet and started chasing me. They were everywhere--under my feet, surrounding me, and no matter where I went, they wouldn't leave me alone. They had seen what I had done for the chipmunks and wanted something, but were just scaring me. I woke up at that point.

The last dream I remember was not quite as bizarre as the second, but still strange enough. It was about breastfeeding, and I was upset because I needed to breastfeed Mya (my dog) and couldn't get to it for some reason. So Al offered to try. Dennis was there as Al's coach. Al managed to produce milk but by that point had given up on actually feeding Mya with it--he produced it by squeezing his own nipple with his hand (yes, Dennis was still coaching). I was upset because he had given up on the puppy so quickly and took her with me to try it again myself, but kept getting both interrupted (by what, I no longer remember) and rejected (by Mya--she wanted Al, I think). It didn't seem strange to me at all in the dream that I was trying to breastfeed a puppy; she was my baby (at least she wasn't half-Chinese this time).

So, here I am after approximately six hours of sleep, at least three strange dreams, and about two hours of laying awake and tossing and turning in bed (partially due to discomfort, partially due to Mya's whining and ripping apart of her bed) awake and blogging. But I'm hoping my day will be a partially productive day like the others have been so far this year with a little nap snuck in on the side. Happy Sunday, Happy New Year, and wishes for normal dreams to you all.