Monday, May 07, 2007

Strange Dreams...

My dreams are fleeting lately. I'll wake up with them vividly on my brain in Technicolor when my sleep is interrupted in the predawn hours by my children. But once I'm fully awake they are lost in the ether of the day.

Eric has started to remember his dreams, but is so far unable to discern them from reality. Rich went in his room last week to get him up and Eric was extremely upset about the spider I had found in the backyard and inserted into his pants.

There was nothing Rich or I could say that convinced him that this did not happen. I may be a Meanest Mommy (TM) from time to time, but inserting arachnids into my children's pants is not high on my list of priorities. Ask me again in a few years, but I'm fairly certain this will not make it on to my "to do" list in this lifetime. A few days later I tried to make a joke about it with "Boris the Spider" a huge black plastic spider with long hairy legs that was Eric's favorite toy when he was two. And the poor child recoiled in horror. Too soon, I suppose.

This morning he said that Rich had come in his room and sucked out all his energy through his tummy. Would that there was a valve to quietly and painlessly release some of his extra energy, we might avail ourselves of it from time to time. But in this case it was purely a fabrication of his subconscious. Again, he earnestly believed this was the truth with all his might.

How do you teach your child the difference between dreams and reality when they are so grounded in the belief that both are the same thing?