when babies enter dreams

There seem to be phases in life, once you have scampered from the nest: the undergraduate years, where you enjoy your freedom, stay up late reading King Lear while your upstairs neighbors accumulate beer cans, walk along campus, your fists thrust in your pockets, write essays against the night sky; the first job days, where you are realizing you can indeed survive without your allowance, without the assistance of any loan or your parents, where you wake up earlier than you remember because you planned your classes around a one o'clock bedtime, find out what going for eight hours each weekday can truly mean; getting engaged, wearing the white dress, making a partnership for the rest of your life, telling stories over homecooked pasta, spooning in the bed you've shared, buying a house, painting the kitchen walls, adding pets to the equation.

And I am now at the phase where my friends, who seem to be a little ahead of me, which is fine, I can be a silent observer, are now having babies: Mandy, now a mama, and Jen, recently pregnant and happy to share stories of nausea. These aren't the first friends with babies--Lani and Jeff had Eve, Evonne and Jeff had Brodi. Husband's sister has a son. Beautiful children. But these are all women to whom I have met either while pregnant (Lani) or not long after (Evonne). Women to whom have been mothers longer than I have known them otherwise. And, though wonderful women, women I have not known since middle school, like the others.

So now I am dreaming of babies, because this is conversation that is arising: baby showers, sleeping through the night, pregnancy scares, "trying" and going off the pill, timing and hope, changes in the shape of body, no more accumulation of beer cans (OK, this stopped a little while before, or rather, become more rare).

My dreams, the past three "nights" (one was during a nap):

- I dreamed that Kelly and I were both pregnant, only I could not tell anyone because Husband was in the mafia. (We are currently working our way through old episodes of The Sopranos. I am saying "fuck" more often too. Husband calls me a pirate.) I ran my hand along my belly and could feel the thrust of the little body inside of me.
- I dreamed that I was in an etsy store, trying to find favors for a baby shower I had to throw.
- I dreamed, last night, that Mandy had her daughter, and she was born a toddler, her hair thick and long and dark, her face clever and sassy, just like her mother.

And, of course, those of you who are curious and might draw conclusions from this kind of dreaming: I am not, nor do we have plans. In fact, we have discussed it, and it seems having children would be a difficult combination with graduate school, if I am somehow miraculously accepted. If I get into the U of MN, which would fit all my needs as far as grad school goes (a good program, funding, geography), it would be three years. Maybe pregnant in the last year, but that would certainly be the earliest.

And even though we want to have children, I think Husband is truly enjoying this time when the dogs are the worst of our interruptions. :) (Who he took up to the bedroom last night and had sleep with us--somehow both ended up draped over me in the night, but I can permit that every once in a while.) We just had our three month anniversary yesterday. There is no strict hurry.

But thinking about some of my favorite people and their bellies growing big with life is exciting.