When the day comes and my baby boy arrives, I’ll be more than happy to forget many of the irksome things that pregnancy puts you through.
But one aspect I don’t want to forget are the crazy and funny dreams I had in this period of my life, brought on by pregnancy hormones and frequent bathroom trips that woke me more often and helped me retain the memories.
Below are the ridiculous scenes that marched through my head each night since last fall, when I learned that Baby Wallace would join us.
—
I’m in an argument with a senior reporter who used to mentor me when she warns me that she’s going to go there, be really honest and tell me just exactly WHY I don’t make a good news reporter.
“Oh my God, please tell me,” I say. “What’s keeping me from being a good reporter?”
“You’re a morning whore,” she says. “You take all the early (in the day) assignments first and don’t give anybody else a chance to grab them.”
“You’re right,” I say, sadly. “You’re absolutely right.”
–
On a no-name beach, the lifeguards warn us of an impending “devastating ice veil,” and start to clear the beach. Each time we get the weather advisory it rudely disrupts our summer holiday. They get easier to pinpoint because they have a theme song—some bouncy, cheesy, late ’80s/early-’90s theme….dadadadananananana DEVASTATING ICE VEIL it wails, with electric guitar in the background.
Finally, after several advisories, I get to see one for myself and it’s exactly what it sounds like: isolated showers of ice spikes falling from the sky and taking out unsuspecting swimmers.
—
Walking a long, hot beach with my childhood friend Maggie, I realize that I forgot my sunscreen—a momentous blow for someone as pale as me who needs it on the hour, every hour, at the very least.
When we arrive to our intended destination in the middle of a desert, we meet my friend Utsab, who helps us fill a mop bucket with oil until it runs over.
—
I remember how much I love butterscotch candies.
I make someone mad at a bookstore.
So I go back to work, where my coworkers show me into an empty conference room where I can use my breast pump. Everyone enjoys freshly baked cookies while I’m pumping. From the next room over I hear my friend Laura, who doesn’t work in our office, say “I love that we have these!”
—
Sam and I were at our wedding, but it wasn’t the gorgeous Fairlane Station wedding that we had in real life. I didn’t recognize the location because tacky quality, bright white tablecloths were as far as the eye could see.
—
Sam and I had two weddings back to back in separate locations, with varying outfits and differing guests, audiences for each. I had a frumpy gown in the second one.
—
We’re at Sonic (a highly uncharacteristic stop for us) and I order a lot of food, including a root beer float and a hamburger. When I’m 3/4 the way through with the burger, Sam asks, “Are you going to finish that?”
“Yes, yes I am, get your own,” I say.
A complete stranger then invites us to the local, city parade where we’re told we can have approximately 13-16 minutes of fun.
—
Only a couple days before we found out the gender of Baby Wallace, I dreamt of my nephew Jordan, who died more than 3 years ago. He appeared only 7 or 8 years old in my dream and was holding my baby. It was clear that he loved, adored and felt protective of my baby, who looked to be a cute blond-haired, chubby boy.
After that, I stopped worrying so much and felt like baby already had a guardian angel.
—
I was at a day-long bridal portrait shoot, where brides arrived to a mall studio and we arranged them in the same position each time: as a mermaid atop a fountain that didn’t have water running. Passing by it for the millionth time, I roll my eyes. “Why doesn’t anyone want something unique?” I think to myself.
—
My childhood friend Maggie is recounting a crazy dream of hers for me and I’m responding to her like it’s one of our regular conversations and not just another dream, which it really is.
—
I’m taking a class in art and architecture, but every time I arrive we study the same structure—some round, white adobe structure with a circular opening at the top that’s not even covered by a window. Through it you can see palm tree branches and storm clouds.
Bret, a former professor of mine, is there, but I can’t tell if he’s the instructor or just another student. So the students can get to know each other, we take turns around the room to say what our (alcoholic) drink of choice is.
When it comes to me, instead of saying wine, I flatly say beer. After a beat, just to be funny I say battery acid. Everyone absorbs this uncomfortably before moving on to the next person.
I’ve got my off-brand phone plugged into the wall. Later in the class, it decides to update several apps at once. Even though it’s on silent, it starts buzzing like crazy. I can’t make it stop.
—
Sam, Jack and I go on vacation but end up in an adventure scenario.
We’re at a testing laboratory. Based on the goings of the unhappy people around us, including my friend Jerry who seems rather apathetic at the time, we’re there for a little more than a year and we’re not exactly free to leave whenever we want.
Escaping out the front door is not an option. To find a way out, you have to survive a moat with some sort of unidentified monster in it. We tried to cross it more than once.
In the final attempt, Sam and Jack went through it successfully. I either forgot something or lagged behind for some unknown reason, so I was the closest to being consumed but managed to narrowly escape.
As I pull myself up on the concrete lip of the other side, I realize I’m wearing Sam’s signature navy hoodie and gray shirt.
—
I arrive to my friend Michelle’s house for our monthly book club. After the meeting, the other women and I are preparing to leave when three men join us. Michelle crawls under the porch and cuts some complicated-looking wires. The house goes dark as I understand that it was us against them. We were about to fight.
—
My sister and I were in a towering skyscraper and for some reason I wasn’t married to Sam, I married someone else. My new husband explained having blacked out—he didn’t remember proposing—and we essentially just woke up with wedding rings on.
Some unnatural storm was brewing and only I seemed to know. People didn’t believe me, but I had to get myself out of there. I was in the woods when the electrical storm hit and could only remember emerging from the forest really beat up and with sticks lodged in my hair. The Stranger Things theme song played in the background.
—
A childhood friend was mysteriously chosen by the Fayetteville Police Department to take my statement after I was attacked on the trail. During the exchange, she got furious with me. She took back a painting that she’d made for me and splashed it with white paint to destroy it, and then pooped on it to make her point.
—
It’s our wedding day again, only this time we got married in Italy under some lovely and architecturally significant building with tall Tuscan archways. I check in to the old hotel next door to get ready and a female coworker is already in the room and won’t share the space. I’m half an hour late to the ceremony because I have to wait my turn.
—
I was taking care of a fluffy, dark gray cat when he started vomiting bright green stuff everywhere. I asked him if I should take him to the veterinarian now. He nods gravely, as if he totally understood.
—
I arrive to my home, but didn’t recognize it as mine right away. When I walked in I assumed it was someone else’s because the person who lived there was clearly a mother. Then I noticed that some of the stuff was definitely mine.
—
I went on a very long, awesome bike ride. I was still living with Charla, an old roommate and dear friend of mine, and when I walked in the door she asked if I wanted to go for another bike ride. I happily agreed, and we took out on the trail again.
—
Baby Wallace was swaddled in white and wearing a white cap. Someone authoritatively tells me to set the baby down. I do, reluctantly. When I look up, he’s on a frozen pond in the middle of the woods. At first, I’m scared for him. Then I relax when I realize not only is he not fussy, he’s totally fine.
—
I was with an ex-boyfriend on a rooftop when he starts to recall some life-threatening incident we supposedly had together. I tell him I don’t remember it. He’s appalled and starts to relay the event in great detail. It’s nothing personal, I say, as I tell him what happened to me on the trail. The other experience simply faded away for me.
He continues to try to refresh my memory of the harrowing experience, but I know it won’t return. It’s truly behind me.
—
My childhood friend Maggie leads me on a quest through the woods to find dead things.
—
Friend Michelle reveals to me that her daughter Lulu Mae was actually her biological daughter and also a twin. I’m shocked to hear this and even more shocked when she reveals that she has multiple sets of twins. Instead of talking to me about her pregnancy experiences, she says casually, “Oh yeah, they install twins in me each year.”
—
A porn literature store popped up on Dickson in Fayetteville, right next to the Dickson Street Bookstore. They called it “Dickson Street Dicks.” It was wildly successful.
—
My parents came to visit us, but we weren’t living in our sweet little historic house in Springdale. It was something industrial, like a modern two-story restaurant or something. My mom really wanted me to make her some toast, but since I don’t like it, I told her I keep the toaster upstairs out of my way. She would have to go get it.
As she walked up the stairs, I asked her to please be careful so she wouldn’t burn the toast and stink up the whole house.
The toaster spoke up, saying in a robotic voice, “LET IT BURN.”
—
Our wedding again, only this time it was in a church with beautiful hardwood floors and walls.
President Bill Clinton was our opening act.
From the bridal suite, I could hear our guests laughing hysterically at whatever Clinton was saying in his nasally drawl. I struggled to get ready on time since we once again handled the bulk of wedding preparations ourselves.
A Rogers City Council member was in the bridal suite with me. She was distressed because she’d forgotten our wedding was so soon and had shaved her eyebrows off. She used an eyebrow pencil on them, but not to recreate eyebrows. She wrote words in their place instead.
—
Coworker Melissa and I continue our coverage of the Bentonville Film Festival. We meet at the library, our usual place to write copy that week, and she reassures me that we have a good start because she’s written four words. “Great!” I say, “What are they?”
They’re “Bentonville Film Festival popcorn.”
I’m oddly relieved by this.
—
Sam was on a weird version of Jeopardy that had a purple-blue background and President Donald Trump was host instead of Alex Trebek. Sam was incredibly tactful and tried his very best to stay out of Trump’s way, but something invariably tipped him off. Trump exploded. “Sam Wallace, you and only you now have to pay taxes,” he yelled. “Nobody else in the U.S.!”
—
I went to the library to check out a stack of five books in preparation for a vacation. For some reason, a female coworker of mine was the library clerk and she refused to lend them to me. I got huffy, called her a book whore and left.
—
I dreamt that I was eating a strawberry pop tart, and it was amazing.
her fearful symmetry 