The Reality of Dreams

On a recent "clean house day", I moved from sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor onto cleaning the bathroom while the kids made the rest of my house a mess around me. When I ventured from the bathroom to grab the broom from the kitchen, I found Lydia like this:

She had fashioned a bed using a couch cushion and the rugs that I had thrown off to the side while the kitchen floor dried. When I approached her she said, "Mom, I'm tired" - this was meant to explain her makeshift bed on the floor. I laughed, took a picture, and then told her to get up because kitchen rugs aren't the cleanest things to be laying under, and it was grossing me out.

Lydia's sleep has been an interesting topic around here lately because she has started remembering her dreams. It's fascinating because she can't separate them from reality yet. We have a Baby Einstein movie with a cow that makes a silly face in it (ask Lydia and she'll make the face for you), and Lydia claimed it as her favorite movie for the last few months...that is, until she had a dream about the cow. She claims the cow came OUT of the television and laid ON her stomach. It was a mean cow. She doesn't like that cow. She is sure it really happened, no matter how many times we tell her it wasn't real, and she now refuses to watch that movie. The Baby Einstein featuring the goat is her new favorite.

Lydia also had a dream that an orange animal came in through her window and got into bed with her. I thought, oh this might be a nice dream. But no. I asked her if the animal was nice and her face became very grave as she shook her head and replied that it was NOT nice. I tried to get more clarification, but she just keeps restating that the animal was orange, it got in her bed with her, and that it was a mean animal. And that it REALLY happened. 

I tell Lydia that the dreams are pretend. And though she nods at me while I'm talking, I can see the doubt in her eyes. After all, SHE was the one the orange animal got into bed with. It was HER stomach the cow laid on. Someday she'll figure out her scary dreams aren't real, the poor girl. But for now she can snuggle up in her kitchen rugs and escape into her own world.

Now, see if you can figure out if that's a real booger or not on Ammon's face -

It is, in fact, cereal that got stuck under his nose in his snot. Just thought you'd enjoy it :)