This morning my family snuggles on the couch still in our pajamas and relates the dreams they had last night. Surprisingly I don’t remember mine. Ralph goes into his somnolent imaginings which involve a homemade Exacto knife tattoo, a renegage possum, and yes, Tom Cruise (I will leave him to post the silly details himself). Then Sophie pipes up:
“I had a dream where me and Mama and Ningo but not Daddy or Blackie went down to the docks. And there were these big sharks in the water. And Mama and Nels went down to go in the water and I said, ‘Don’t go in the water! Watch out for the sharks!’ And then I went down and there was a boat and Mama and Nels got in. Then I got in and we were all safe from the sharks.”
(Note I am paraphrasing as the actual telling of the dream took much longer and had many more speech impediments – “wakts” instead of “watch”, for instance.)
Ralph says, “Well, I think Nels had a dream last night too. I woke up in the middle of the night to this [hitting the side of his leg] and ‘No, Dophie!!'”
So I guess we know what our children have their secret terrors about – sharks for Sophie … and Sophie for Nels.