The Frog

I think it's finally time to tell you about the frog....

When I was 23 I started having this reoccurring dream about a little girl and her little stuffed frog. It was always the same dream: a little girl about 3 or 4 years old, skipping around the room, happily humming to herself, holding onto a stuffed frog.

She never said anything to me and I never said anything to her. I'd just watch her skip and listen to her hum the same song again and again.

She had brown hair that was just a little bit curly on the ends and the curls would bounce with every skip. She had brown eyes and olive skin. So cute. So happy. So perfect...but then every parent thinks their child is perfect right?

I really don't know why I always had the feeling that she was mine since we never interacted with each other at all, but there was a definite feeling that this was my little girl.

Of course at 23 years old....I panicked. After the first 2 or 3 dreams I started thinking "Oh my god, am I about to get pregnant??!" I was pretty settled at the time: I had a good job, owned my own house and car, had the same boyfriend for years. Even though I was in a good position to have a baby, I totally wasn't ready.

So yes, I panicked. No, I more than panicked. I totally lost my shit. And I couldn't even tell anyone about it because they'd just think I was crazy. Why would anyone believe that I was dreaming about my future child? What was I going to do, just casually bring it up during Friday night drinks? "So how was your week?" "Oh ya know, the usual. Work was good, I finally painted the shelves in the pantry, I couldn't BELIEVE who got kicked off of Survivor this week. Oh, and I saw my future 4 year old child".....um, no. That wouldn't have gone over well. They probably would have blamed it on the Friday night drinks and staged an intervention right then and there.

So instead, I did what any normal minded person would do. I started analyzing it. After channeling my inner Freud my conclusion was, "She can't be mine. She has dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin." I have brown hair but it's not particularly dark, my eyes are green and my skin is pretty pale. My then boyfriend: blond hair, blue eyes. "It's just a stupid dream Tara. Calm down."

So I calmed down.

But the dreams didn't.

At least once every couple of months I could count on a visit from the little girl with the stuffed frog.

Eventually the blond haired, blue eyed boyfriend and I broke up, and the next boyfriend: red hair, blue eyes. Nope. Still doesn't fit. But why was still having this dream?

When I was 27 I applied for a semester abroad through my university and was accepted. I was on my way to Greece! What was I studying? Byzantine somethingorother?....whatever, it was basically a holiday with a bit of mandatory reading and a lot of sleeping off hangovers on the beach. THE best summer of my life but anyway, that's another story for another time. During my 2 months in Greece living like a Bohemian (my Aunt's words, not mine...I'm still not sure what it means but it's probably not very complimentary) I met Antonis. Ohhh Antoni. It was a whirlwind summer romance and  I fell madly in love with this crazy Greek man. But we all know how summer romances end. They end. As much as I didn't want that to happen I couldn't see how it could possibly work. But I didn't care, I ignored that thought and carried on with my crazy Greek man. In August I came back to Canada but Antonis and I had decided that we'd stay together and I'd come back that December for a visit.

I didn't see the little girl with the frog all summer. Actually, for the first time in 4 years I'd forgotten about her.

Back in Vancouver one October morning I woke up suddenly from a dream, completely covered in sweat and nearly hyperventilating. In the dream Antonis and I were sitting on his couch in his living room, watching a soccer game. The game was very vivid in the dream, which didn't make sense at the time because I couldn't care less about soccer. Anyway, one of the teams wore green shirts with a four-leaf clover on it. All of a sudden....I heard the humming....then I heard the little skipping feet....then suddenly there she was, skipping and humming around the couch with her little stuffed frog. She stopped in front of Antonis, crawled up into his lap, grabbed his face between her little hands and said "I love you Daddy." And he said, "I love you too kouklitsa" and he gave her a kiss on her forehead.

When I'd finally recovered a bit I started analyzing. It can't be....could it? She has dark hair like him. She has dark eyes like him. She has dark skin like him. And actually, she really looks like him.

I was totally stunned. I didn't know what to think, I was freaking out, I was confused, but also kind of happy because finally I might know what these dreams were all about. Maybe. But I still told myself, it's just a stupid dream Tara. Calm down.

I talked to Antonis all the time but I didn't tell him anything about the dreams. How could I? He'd think I was insane. But I couldn't hold it in anymore, I had to talk it over with someone. So I told a few of my friends who had been to Greece with me and knew Antonis. Thankfully, they didn't try to put me in a mental hospital or stage an intervention. Actually they all reacted really positively. And after telling them, I finally started to think that maybe the dreams were true.

In December I came back to Greece, realized I was still totally madly in love with the crazy Greek man, and he was with me, so we had The Marriage Talk. The Marriage Talk went on for a few days and one of these days I decided to tell him about the dreams. I was totally freaked out about how he was going to react but for some reason I needed to know how he'd react.

So I told him.

He was quiet for a VERY long time.

Then he said, "Who was playing?"

Excuse me, what now? Was he not even listening to what I just said?! So I said, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHO WAS PLAYING??!!"

"The football teams. Who was playing?"

"I don't know, I don't watch football, I don't know anything about it!" and I was so totally pissed off that he'd ask me that since it clearly had nothing to do with what I was telling him. Then I remembered the green shirts and the four-leaf clover emblem, so I told him that.

His mouth dropped. "That's Panathanaikos! How did you know about Panathanaikos?!"

"Panathawhat? What the hell is that?"

He explained that Panathanikos is one of the most popular soccer teams in Greece, which I now know very well but didn't have even a clue about at that time.

After that he said something like "well I guess we're having a baby!" and I said something like "NOT RIGHT NOW, ARE YOU INSANE?!?!" I still find it funny that after months of not wanting to say anything to him because I was afraid he'd think I was insane, and the conversation ended with me calling HIM insane....

After that day I still had dreams about the little girl with the stuffed frog...our little girl with the stuffed frog...but now I would see her at all different ages, in different settings, and she would talk to me. She'd talk to everyone actually, she never stopped talking! Sometimes we were sitting at the restaurant eating dinner, her as a baby in a high chair getting mushy food all over her face and in her hair. Sometimes she was twirling around the room in a pink tutu telling me all about what happened in ballet class that day. But wherever and whatever was happening, she still always had the little stuffed frog with her. The morning after every dream I would wake up and tell Antonis what she was doing the night before and he would listen and smile and then crack some joke or another about it to make us both feel a little less insane.

So now our beautiful little girl is here! She can't hum or skip yet, but her hair is definitely brown, her eyes are green right now but they're getting darker all the time and might be brown eventually, her skin isn't that dark but it will be darker than mine. And she looks like him.

Oh. And she has the little stuffed frog.

Mr. Frog is her favourite. He was a present from my mom....who didn't know anything about him or this story until right now.