Dreams

I had an especially weird and crazy dream early this morning, right before I got up {maybe even during the 10-minute "snooze" after our alarm went off the first time}. All day yesterday and all day today our house has been extra full as we're hanging out with 3 extra kiddos. My friend Allie's little man, Sam, and Vince and G-Rae, the 2 kids from the family that I've done daycare for the past few years have been here. Sam is here for 48 hours straight {since he lives on the other end of the world and coming to get him at night isn't so smart}. The other 2 go home at night. When you have a teacher for a parent, childcare gets a little extra tricky the week before school starts, since you need to "go to school" and your kids don't. So what is any good teacher to do? Call us! Thus we've been a 9-kid house.

Possibly that fact had something to do with fueling my dream -- a dream in which I "gave birth" {not in the normal way though . . . you know how dreams are!} to triplet boys! It also might have to do with the fact that we just got home from a WONDERFUL, FABULOUS, favorite-week-of-the-year week at family camp {which, hopefully, I will get a chance to blog about later} and there were 2 ladies at camp who were about 37 weeks, plus there was an adorable 4-week old boy there with his family, and a few other not-quite-as-far-along pregnant ladies there too. Also, I have a thing for babies! {in case you didn't know!} And, also, I have to add that there was a family at camp with 7 kids. Their oldest was a few months younger than Jacob and their youngest was a few months younger than Sara, so basically we had kids the same ages, they just squeezed one more in there than we did. I told them we had 4 girls and 2 boys and the mom answered, "So did we until we had the seventh one." I love being around other big families! They "get it" so much better than most people.

So, back to the dream :: In my dream I was sitting in a chair in a room with another woman {OB? Nurse? Produce manager? I'm not sure of her exact role in the whole thing}. Appearing, seemingly, out of nowhere {wouldn't it be nice if that's how birth really was?} into this woman's hands one at a time came these three little spheres which she then peeled, kind of like you would peel an orange, and then she handed me my baby -- which had emerged from the little sphere. None of the boys cried or anything when she peeled/delivered them, but that didn't seem any weirder to me than the fact that she was peeling them in the first place. As I held the boys one at a time, my thoughts went immediately to the fact that I would have to name them. Being that they came together, I wanted their names to kind of "go together" too.

My first thought was "John, Paul and Ringo", even though I'm not a major Beattles fan or anything. But I shot that brainstorm down quickly when I imagined introducing my kids :: "These are our kids, Jacob, Rebekah, Lydia, Joseph, Anna, Sara, John, Paul and RINGO." It just didn't work for me. Plus, there is also the fact that I'm bothered by rhyming names. Contrary to what many people think, our last name is pronounced "stall", as in the place in the garage where you park your car, or where you pee in a public bathroom, or when your car stops going . . . not like "stole" as if you think we take things that don't belong to us. So, anyway, Paul Stoll is not a good choice in my book. {On a related note, some of you know that my father-in-law is one of 17 kids in his family. Now I fully understand that if you give 17 kids a first AND middle name that you have used up 34 names, which is quite a few, and by the end there you could possibly run out of names you really like. But, guess what they named their firstborn boy? You guessed it. Paul Stoll. He was a wonderful, godly man, but I've always thought it funny that, when they had all the boy names in the whole world to choose from, they chose to name their first boy a name that rhymed.} I also considered naming the triplets "Alvin, Simon and Theodore" but decided that wasn't the right three-some either. Finally we settled on Peter, James and John, in the spirit of the catchy Sunday school song that many of you might know. So, I finally got a Peter, which is a name I've wanted to throw in the hat each time I was pregnant, but Kirb always shot it down.

Maybe I should get Joseph from the Old Testament to come and interpret it for me. Or maybe my Joe could do it. Or maybe I don't want to know!

Anyway, that was how I started my day!

And for you long-time blog readers, in the spirit of 'Thankful Thursday' I will add that we are not expecting any number of babies . . . just in case you were wondering. {And I know some of you were!}