Imagine It

One thing i really love about Flynn now that he is growing up is his growing imagination. He's 2 and 4 mths now, and it seems like everyday he's expanding the way he plays by imagining bigger and better things.

One day we were eating dinner and he had his sipper cup and his fork, waving them around above his head - or, according to him " Mum - they flying up in space! ". The next week he was making wriggly movements with his forefinger and introducing himself as " Mr Worm " or " Mr Snake " ( which would always get a giggle from him when i mock screamed at the snake in my house ). The past week though its been all about firemen. Every truck he owns is a " fire truck " and Fireman Flynn and Fireman Daddy and Fireman Pop have been out to numerous rescues to "make people safe ". I dont miss out either... sometimes i'm just back at the fire station, or on a good day i get to be Ambulance Lady Mummy. ( Mind you, every fireman or paramedic he has is a block from his Megablocks set - he doesnt own any action figures yet so he's even using his imagination to humanise a block! )


love indulging his little fantasies - i'm quite happy to be a red Duplo block paramedic, or to lace my thumbs together to turn into Mrs Butterfly. I love to ask him questions and giggle at his imagined scenarios: " Did Fireman Daddy to go a rescue? " once got a " No Mum - he getting a sam-widge for his lunch ". I cant wait to see what else he comes up with as he gets older, and whether a big imagination translates into a love of creative writing like it did with me.


Me? I always played " boyfriend/girlfriend " with my Barbie dolls, or took my Cabbage Patch dolls on trips to the beach. I dreamed about being an paedatrician when i grew up ( until i realised i'm not overly fond of either copious amounts of blood, or of study ) and imagined myself travelling the world. Even at 27 years old, i think theres plenty of imagination left in this old girl yet!


How about you? Were you a head-in-the-clouds imaginative type of kid?

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This

A friend of mine has a theory that if a women starts having crazy wackydoo dreams, just seemingly out of the blue, it means she's pregnant, or very soon will be. She has applied this theory to me twice, and has only been right once ( back in December, when i would have only just conceived ). So, i guess, as theories go, it could use a bit of work. What i find interesting though, and no doubt can be scientifically proven somehow, is that once a lady is well and truely into a pregnancy - say 6 weeks along or more - she does start having more vivid dreams. Or, at the very least, this lady does.

I've been having completely wacked out, trippy dreams for at least 2 months now. Not every night, but at least once or twice a week, and i have to say that some of them have left me completely baffled.

The one where i was going the full pash with Joseph Gordon Levitt ( " 100 Days of Summer " Levitt, not " 3rd Rock From the Sun " Levitt ) in a school hallway wasnt too nutty, but the one where i was going the full.... lets say " Monty " .... with Red Foo from LMFAO was a head scratcher. And its not the sexual dreams either - i've been in an internment camp with the Muppets and escaping from a vaguley school-like prison with Chris Hemsworth from " Thor " ( also not too bad of a kisser, apparently ). And those are just the few i can actually remember!

So is it just me or are vivid, and somewhat crazy, dreams standard for most pregnant ladies? Or am i on my own with this?

I think i need my head read

You know what ? I hate cryptic dreams sometimes. Dont get me wrong - sometimes the absurdity of my own subconcious amuses me, but sometimes it annoys me no end. I especially dislike it when i wake up in the middle of a crazy dream, because then there is no chance of making it to the end and maybe making some sense of it. I hate that - i'm left completely puzzled for at least an hour later. How can i enjoy my peanut butter on toast for breakfast when i'm puzzled ?

I've already posted about my Uncle Steve the Big Red Alligator dream, which has got to be one of my all time weirdest dreams, but the dream/s i had last night rank right up there on the crazy list. So in the first one i was back nannying in the US, back with the same host family, but my room upstairs wasnt quite the same. It was configured slightly differently but i didnt have stairs - i had a slide ( or a slippery dip as we call them in Australia ). So, if you can imagine, i had a few stairs to get TO the room, but to get back down i had a slide that ended in the kitchen. Plus, i was naked for the majority of the dream. Whats up with that? I'm running along the incredibly long hallway - like absurdly long, 50 rooms long - with the the three year old, and i'm naked; I'm driving the boys to school and i'm naked; i'm folding the washing in the living room and i'm naked. The only time i wasnt naked in the dream was when i was introducing the boys to my aunt and 6 month old cousin. What the freaking hell ?

And in my second dream, i was back working retail at the place i worked before i went to the US. But instead of being indoors, it was like the shop was surrounded by walls but had no roof, and i was manning a register in the boiling hot sun. I was frying people - frying! And nobody cared. And all these people i went to school with, people who were grades above that i was never friends with, they all worked there too. But they got shady spots to work in, unlike poor old me who was turning lobster like in the sun. My old bosses just walked right on past and i started yelling about suing the arses of the company for letting me burn. What is up with that ?

See, you've just read what i dreamt - none of it makes sense, right ? What is any of that supposed to mean ? So i'm naked and burning, which might make sense if i lived in the middle ages and was afraid of being outed as witch, but doesnt make so much sense right here and now. They were both set in places i worked in the past, but so what ? Whats going on there? Does anybody have any ideas here ?

Seriously, please tell me i am not the only one who is mildly nuts like this....

Do you think they're trying to tell me somethng ?

Sometimes I would really like to know what is up with weird dreams. Specifically, weird dreams involving celebrities. Even more specifically, weird dreams involving having sex with celebrities. I read somewhere when you dream of having sex with someone that it doesnt necessarily mean you want to sleep with that person ( unless, of course, you really do want to shag Johnny Depp... ) - rather there is something about that person, a personality trait, that you admire or are attracted to. I could understand that if you dream of sleeping with say, your boss or an employee mentor that you might want to emulate, or that really good friend of a friend that you'd really like to be as popular as. But what if the person, or type of person your sleeping with in these dreams, is somewhat unsettling ? See, last night i had a quite vivid dream involving myself and the recently deceased ( he died on my birthday, god rest his soul... ), Heath Ledger. But not grungy, hippie dad Heath. Not long haired, karaoke singing, high school rebel Heath. Not even clean cut but secretly gay cowboy Heath. Nope, this is the Heath i was dreaming about:









Psychotic, anarchic, murderous clown Heath. Well kind of anyway - he wasnt dressed so much as the Joker but the Heath in my dream had the same kind of personality, only a little less trigger happy. He was angry and vengeful and warning that he was going to kill someone. I didnt see that - all I got from him was that he was lost, confused and scared, and so I went to him. And... yada, yada, yada, make up the nasty details for yourself. But the point is I was intensely sexually attracted to a slightly demented, and potentially dangerous, character played by an actor who is dead in real life.



This is not the first time I've noticed this odd dream attraction. Truth be told, and i've never really admitted it before, but I have had many the fantasy involving this man:

That is Brandon Lee, as he appears as Eric Draven in " The Crow ". I dont know how many of you have seen the film ( which i count as my all time favourite ) but basically Eric Draven is a guy who was murdered by neighbourhood thugs and returns from the grave to avenge his fiances violent death. Oh, also - Brandon Lee is dead. Do we see a pattern here ?

I'm questioning the meaning behind these dreams. Why, in fantasy land, am I so intensely drawn to the dangerous, violent, slightly Gothic, overly made up, broken boys ? Why do my " dream " men like painting their faces and seem to have all kinds of emotional issues ? Could it be that i am subconsciously transferring some of my own characteristics to a symbol of relationships? Or does it mean that in reality i'm looking for a beautiful but broken boy that i can fix and, in doing so, fix myself ?

I really dont know. Perhaps i'm over thinking this and i just really want to get it on with a boy in makeup and leather pants. I wish someone could give me the answer. Seriously, if you have any insight into this let me know. Otherwise i might have to ask my psychologist and it's gonna be kind of awkward bringing up the fact that my most intimate sexual fantasies involve face paint, violence, and talented actors dead before their time.....

Uncle Steve the Big Red Alligator and introducing the Doormat Branch

So heres the thing - i dont sleep too well. Most nights, i wake up four or five times, i toss, i turn, and by the time the alarm goes off i am back to being tired again. Its that whole " I'm so tired of waking up tired " thing for me. The other thing is, the more tired i am and the more restless my sleep, the weirder my dreams. And i'm talking weird. Crazy. Like, wake up in the morning and go " What the forking beejesus was that supposed to mean ?!? " crazy. Let me elaborate:

For those of you who are either new here, didnt already know or who may have forgotten, i was once an au pair in the United States. Instead of having to explain what au pair actually means - i was a nanny ( to three very wonderful boys... but i digress ). Anyhoo, so last night i dreamt that i was a nanny again, but it wasnt for the same family. Some members of this family were white, but the parents and one child were dark skinned ( i'd be politically correct and say African-American or Aboriginal, but truth be told i dont know where this dream was taking place ). Weirder still was that the youngest child in said family was my neice, Hannah. And there i was, nanny to this family, brand new into the job and off we go to visit their Uncle Steve. But Uncle Steve was no ordinary man-uncle - no, Uncle Steve was a big, red, alligator. And by big, i mean HUGE. You remember Clifford the Big Red Dog ? Well Uncle Steve was the alligator equivalent of Clifford. He was a monstrous, red, reptile and he lived in a huge pond. With a lid. Like a coffin lid. On a pond. Uncle Steve could also speak - in English suprisingly ( in a dream like this you would have thought it would have been some obscure Russian dialect or something ) - and he was really sweet. The kids and the family got in the pond and swam with him. I sat on the edge and gave Hannah a marshmallow from my handbag. There were other kids playing nearby the pond and when one of them fell in and started crying, i pulled him out and gave him a marshmallow too. Just as Hannah starting yelling out " Amma! Amma ! " - the name of a Finnish exchange i knew in high school - i woke up.
Seriously - can anybody else say what the ?!? Perhaps the combination of bad sleep and brain altering medication is pysching me out....

But enough with dreams, and on to reality. Yes, we all have to wake up sometimes, and that kind of sort of, happened today. My colleagues and I all came to the conclusion that we are the Doormat Branch. That is, we are the branch of our company that everyone else takes advantage of and, frankly, we're sick of being walked all over. But what are we to do? Find new jobs? Conduct a walk off and picket outside the store? Fire off an aggressive email to management ? Or just take a cup of cement and harden the fuck up ? Our branch has been understaffed by at least two people for almost a month straight now. We have been coping the best we can, some of us even taking on roles and duties that do not come under our job description. One of my workmates came in to work sick as a dog, dying of the lurgy, ill to the point where she had lost her voice and couldnt talk, because she was the only person to fill that role that day. And we soldiered on. Sure, some of the paperwork got backed up, but when you're short staffed and ( some of you ) are on deaths door step, that cant exactly be helped. Management, however, thinks it can. No " Thanks guys, you're really doing well down there ", no " Job well done in a hard situation ", no " Can we send someone down to help you guys? ". No, only an email from our area supervisor querying why some paperwork had not been put on and questioning our priorities and understanding of our job. Even though she was aware of the no staff and the dying of the lurgy bit. Are you freaking kidding me ? We spent a good half hour following the arrival of managements email bitching about how unappreciated we are. Whenever someone else at another branch is sick or needs holiday coverage who do they get to go ? Someone from our branch. One of us goes away, say for a week long tutorial, and we dont ask for a ring-in, we just buck up and get on with it. Management even sent one us away to another branch for six months ( which is why WE are now short staffed ) to begin a job looking after some agencies and when a new agency opened, one that my workmate had been working on for months, did he get to go to the opening? Nope. Some other douche from some other branch who had little to nothing to do with it went. What a crock of crap.

Perhaps i should get my good buddy Uncle Steve the Big Red Alligator to rock up to management and tell them how we really feel.....

Clarification

So according to the comments on my post regarding my dream the other night, i am apparently the only one who understand what it means. Which, i suppose, is a good thing otherwise it would be like the rest of you knew too much about me, being able to interpret my dreams and all.
So, for the benefit of those who queried me in those comments, here is what i believe that dream is telling me:

" Black dog " is a colloquial term for depression, coined by Winston Churchill i believe. It's used in a lot of texts and when i first undertook counselling i was given a video to watch called " Taming the Black Dog " ( or something close to that ... ). Now, from what i can remember of the dream i am watching this huge, furry, black dog through my window - i know its there, i know it probably wants to come in but i dont open the window or the door, i just sit, and watch, and wait. Somehow - and i dont remember how, maybe i eventually DID let it in, i dont remember, thats just the way dreams work i suppose - this cuddly looking black dog gets into my house and bites me, on the ribs of all places, high up ( kind of near my armpit actually ...weird. ). And then - i dont know, because thats when i woke up.

So, having thought about it over the course of the morning and, since my post, the last few days, i think this black dog is representative of depression, of the depressing, ambivalent, non-motativational " mood " i have slowly been sinking into for the last couple of months. Just like in the dream, i could see it coming - i knew i was getting progressively lonelier, sadder, less motivated to do things - but i didnt really do anything other than sit and wait for the inevitable meltdown to come. Or for the black dog to break in and bite me, if you will. Secondly, the fact that this dog bites me around the ribs is telling aswell. Physically, my ribs are the most sensitive area of my body - it is, depending on the mood, either an intense pleasure or an intense pain to be touched there - so the fact that this is where the dog has chosen to attack tells me the depression is hitting me, attacking, preying on my weaknesses.
Lastly, and perhaps most alarmingly, its the appearance of the dog that disturbs me. This dog, in the dream, was not scary looking. It wasnt aggressive like, for example, a Doberman or a Rottweiler, big black dogs that most of us assume could do us some damage. No, the dog in the dream was big, furry, cuddly looking - more like a black Labrador. A dog that you would like to own, to shower affection on, to have as a company. The fact that i wasnt afraid of this dog, that despite the fact that i didnt welcome it into my house, i made no huge attempt to stop it and, other than the fact that it bit me, i actually didnt mind so much having a dog in the house, makes me think maybe i like being depressed ? Maybe i actively court these feelings because they make me feel different and or special ?

Or maybe, in that third instance anyway, i'm just over-analysing....