So I had the weirdest dream last night. I gave birth to sextuplets. At least, I thought I did, but I was sort of out-of-it during the birth (as one would be, I suspect), and all I remembered were that all the babies were girls, and I felt vaguely guilty for not giving Helpdesk Man a son. But then Mum took all the babies home for the night to give me a break (?!) and by the time I woke up in the morning, I was terribly worried that I’d forgotten to breastfeed them. So she brought all the babies and lined them up on the couch, and I was cross that she’d forgotten which ones were which, because I’d named a few of them. (Can’t remember what - I think one was Kirsten, which is not a name I’d choose in real life, although maybe if I had six I’d be less picky?) And then, to my horror, I realised that some of them weren’t babies at all but dolls, including a Cinderella porcelain doll Grandma sent over from Australia. So I stood there weeping, unable to tell which babies were real and which were dolls, and waiting for the midwife to come and tell me so I could feed the real ones. And I was all worried about how many legitimate babies I had, and hoping that they were somewhat fewer than six for the sake of my sanity. And then I realised that the one I’d beem holding wrapped in a tea-towel was neither a baby nor a doll, but a green plastic sieve I use to sift twigs and stones out of the dirt in the garden. And I was like “Huh, how did I not notice this before?” And then I woke up.
Moral of the story, don’t sleep in. I always have bizarre dreams when I sleep in. But call me a flighty and irresponsible harpy, it was something of a relief to wake up and find myself not the mother of sextuplets.