I can't think of an appropriate title...

Ugh. Last night I just had the worst dream. I mean---really bad. Just awful. It was one of those where you wake up & you are gasping for breath & you are already sitting up, and just shaking because it is so bad....

...I had this dream that I was "in charge" of two children: a little boy (16-18 months old), and a little girl (4-7 years old). In my mind, they were the children of someone else---they should be older than me, but I was somehow an adult in their childhood....if that makes sense. Anyway....the little boy, he....I don't know what happened to him exactly, but I needed to do CPR on him. And when I was doing CPR, he was fighting me & biting me. So, I thought, if he is able to fight me, then he no longer needs CPR. I went to the little girl, and she was covered in vomit, and not breathing. So, I needed to do CPR on her....but, the little boy stopped breathing too. And his eyes---one was rolled back in his head, and the other was just staring at me. Watching me. Like he was teasing me, & watching me agonize over how to choose between them...which one to save? And I started thinking---when they grow up, I don't like the woman that the little girl becomes. So, I'll save him. But no---I already know that he is going to die as an adult, but prematurely---before the woman (the grown up little girl...) So, I am agonizing over who to save. And then, I realize---the little boy & the little girl are my children. They're both mine, and I have to save them both, but I can't. And then I woke up.

It was awful.

....Gage & I must have this connection though, because within a few minutes, he was awake too & calling for us. He actually called for Hubby...but we both got up. Gage wanted his 'nilla milk (his new soy vanilla flavored milk...) so Hubby fixed some for him. His diaper had leaked all over, so I rather enjoyed taking him out of his crib, changing his clothes, changing his diaper, and snuggling him. It was truly just what I needed. I just needed to feel him, and hold him, and to feel him need me.

Earlier in the evening, we watched "Flags of Our Fathers"...about Iwo Jima, and it was a good movie. It's just....it really kind of got to me. On two levels.... First, it made me think of my grandfather. He was a gunner with the Air Corps, back when there was an Air Corps. He came from a small town in Texas, and served in the military...as many other young men---boys----did back then. There was something said in the movie, and I know that I am butchering it up...but, it was about how heroes are something that we create...and you don't necessarily think about the pressure of that, or what it takes to be a hero, or what is taken from those who we now call "heroes". It just really struck me....I think about that with my grandfather, and now that he is getting older....not too long ago something was brought up about the war, and the planes, and things like that. It was the first time that I've seen my grandfather cry about the things he had seen, and the things he had done. As he gets older & faces his own mortality, he reflects a great deal about those things. Things that for years he either didn't face, or just didn't discuss. In those moments years ago, he was a boy following orders. He was a boy killing others or they would have killed him. But now, he has a hard time with those actions...those decisions...those visions...things that he has seen and done. And there is nothing that I can do to help him. We've tried to talk about it. I can get him to stop crying, but I can't undo it. I can't take it away. I can't rewind time and protect the little boy that he was....I can't get that innocence back for him. On one hand, he seems to understand that it was him or them....but, it does not change the fact that his actions took lives.

The other thing about the movie....I see everything differently as a mom now. When the movie was over, I just had this overwhelming desire to do the impossible: to keep my son from ever growing up, to keep him little forever, to keep him & protect him from anything that may cause him pain in any way. I just had this sadness thinking about him growing up. I know that there are so many joyous things in our future with Gage...watching him learn new things, and someday being taller than me (that day may come before kindergarten!)....I know that there are so many great things to come with him. But, I also know that there are going to be tough life lessons, and heartache, and things that I can't shut out for his protection.
I just felt helpless against time.

...anyway, like I said: holding him during the middle of the night was just what I needed.