AHHHHHHHH!

big picture post from the weekend coming up soon, but before that i have to share my first, official parental anxiety nightmare, which i had sunday night/monday morning:

it starts with the wife away on a "business trip" to london. i somehow decide i'm going to go meet up with her, so i'm at the airport in london and the subway is built right in. there's also a huge shopping mall i have to walk through to get to the outside where the trains are arriving. i finally make it out to where the trains are and i'm completely disorientated (as dream locales go, nothing beats a train station for representations of confusion, being lost, not knowing the way to go, feeling disconnected... whew). i'm trying to read the schedules to find out which train i need to get on, none of the trains are marked, there are no times posted, i'm feeling pressed for time and starting to get stressed... finally the train i need pulls in to the station and i try to get on. to do this, you have to walk through the door that opens and into a turnstyle. i say 'into' rather than 'through' because it's actually these two rotating gates (picture those big washer brushes at the carwash that run down the sides of your car, squeezing you through. or, um, a meat grinder? yikes) with metal arms that kind of push you through and into the train. only once i'm in this device, it stops, pinning me in between. i realize that this is when you pay your fare, and having paid, you're released the rest of the way into the train. i panic because i never got money. just when i'm thinking i'll be stuck, it rotates a little more and i'm able to squeeze through.

now i'm on the train, but i hear this far away noise, like a baby crying through the crackle of static. then i realize everyone is looking at me because the noise is coming from the baby monitor on my belt. cue anxiety and absolute distress. 'holy f__!' i think, my baby is thousands of miles away, and she's waking up from her nap and she's crying and I'M IN LONDON AND I'VE SOMEHOW LEFT HER HOME ALONE AND THERE IS NO WAY I WILL MAKE IT BACK TO HER ANYTIME SOON! I AM HOURS AWAY AT THE VERY LEAST AND MY POOR BABY IS ALL. BY. HERSELF. words really fail to describe, but if you're a parent i think you get the gist of this. if not, revert back to that dream you had where you realize you're at school naked, or something along those lines. sheer terror.

i call my sister jamie, who has been babysitting for us, but she says she can't get there anytime soon. for some reason i tell her i'm in california and she needs to get over to our house as soon as she can. one more loud squawk from the baby monitor, and then i'm awake, all chest pains and sweat. strangely enough, i never even got to the part where lb takes me apart for leaving our baby at home asleep while hopping on a plane to cross the atlantic. maybe if it had gone on a little longer...