To Dream, Perchance to Sleep

A few weeks ago I was poking around on the all-knowing internet for some ideas and encouragement in the child-rearing arena, and ran across what seems to be a really calm, sane, interesting source of information (drgreene.org). One article I read (though I wasn't looking for it) addressed the issue of being driven crazy by your pre-schooler asking you why? Why? Why? Or in one of our typical end of my rope exchanges, Me: "No, don't ask why, just say, 'Yes, Mom.'" Naomi: "Yes, Mom, but why?" Says Dr. Greene, or whoever wrote the article, the questioner does not in fact really want a logical cause and effect explanation for every minute particle of their day, but instead, just really wants to hear me talk a lot more about whatever we're already talking about or experiencing. When I think about it that way, it's a little easier to make myself think of more to say (though I already think I have created a chatty little monster, in a lot of ways).

The other standout was an answer to the question of whether babies dream. Based on brain signals, it seemed that babies likely do dream, and maybe even more than we do. The other fascinating idea from this article was that we not only dream at night, but also during the day. In the same way that the brightness of the sun prevents us from seeing the stars in the daytime sky (though they are there), the overbearing brightness of our conscious mind makes it impossible for us to experience our daytime dreams. 

Hmm, what am I dreaming about today? Are the daytime ones as weird as the nighttime ones? The other night I dreamed that I met a plane carrying Naomi (current, little tiny Naomi) back to me from somewhere, and she had been inexplicably seated next to... Billy Joel? Not angry, grayed, and drunk-driving, but jovial, friendly eighties Billy. And he had found Naomi to be such a charming seat mate that he offered to sing us a song, so which one did I want? And in the dream I was so embarrassed because I knew there was a song of his I really liked singing along to, an extra cheesy one, but I couldn't remember. So I had to say, oh, thanks, no need, rather than risk sounding like I didn't actually know any of his songs. I remembered the song when I woke up; it's "For the Longest Time." Heh.

Finally, in the category of sleep related items, whenever the grownups in the house are required to pretend to be sleeping as part of imaginary play (which for Jim often leads to real sleeping, on the kid's bedroom floor), we always dutifully make cartoon snoring sounds. Recently, Naomi finally learned how to fake snore, and she sounds like a high school football player clearing his sinuses. Lovely. Even though I fake snore with the best of them, apparently, she thinks I'm really really faking, as the following exchange suggests:

Naomi: Do you know what mans do when they are sleeping? 

Me: Um, no. what? 

Naomi: They SNORE!