Hanging out with the dream king

I had a strange dream last night...

I woke in the middle of the night to hear Emily fussing through the baby monitor. I went downstairs to her room to check on her. Usually all she wants is a pacifier. We keep two in her room — one in her crib so she can get it when she needs it, and a spare on her dresser so we can hand it to her quickly without having to search the floor in the dark for the one she probably dropped. Haste is the key, because if her cries escalate or continue too long, she'll wake herself up, and it will take 30 minutes or longer to get her back to sleep.

As I entered Emily's room, I noticed that her crib was out of place. Apparently, she'd stuck her feet through the bars and pushed off of the wall so that the crib was now next to her dresser. I reached for where the spare pacifer is usually kept only to find Emily's mouth already around it. She was standing up in her crib and arching herself backward over the bars to reach her beloved prize (nevermind that this defies laws of physics and anatomy).

"Well, at least that solves that problem," I thought, so while I was up I went outside to check the mail. Looking up at the house from the mailbox, I saw Emily was now sitting in the sill of one of the upstairs windows (nevermind that the upstairs front windows are 15 feet off the floor, since we have a loft). She began banging her hands against the screen, and I was afraid that it would pop out and she would fall. I hurried upstairs to catch her before a disaster occurred.

Then I wore up — for real, this time.

A few weeks ago I had a similar dream...

The family was on vacation, and we were staying at some fancy hotel. I went out on the balcony to find Emily crawling on the guard railing (which was about a foot wide and made of concrete). As she made her way along the ledge toward an animal (I can't recall now what it was. It could have been a turtle or a hedgehog or a weiner dog — I don't know. All I remember is that it was small), her footing became more and more narrow until it came to a point. By the time Emily grabbed the animal, she no longer had room to maneuver on the ledge, and she toppled over the side. She landed on concrete a few feet below at a pool/garden area. I jumped over the balcony to reach her, and she cried for only a moment until I picked her up and held her. I remember thinking that I'd better find Misty and bring Emily to the doctor to get her checked out.

This dream makes a little more sense to me, because the same sort of thing actually happened back in November.