Robbie Has a Bad Dream--But of What?

My wife just interrupted me as I was finishing the last post. I'd heard Robbie (22 months old) crying about a half-hour ago, and apparently she'd fished him out of bed and held him tight until he fell back asleep in her arms. She needed me to lift him carefully and put him back to bed.

After doing so (the dutiful husband and father that I am), I asked my wife if she had any idea why Robbie awoke so distressed.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe he had a bad dream."

To which I wondered, and then said, "What kind of bad dream could Robbie have? He dreamed that Spongebob wasn't on TV?"

To which my wife laughed--not because it was clever, but because it was true. What other kind of bad dream might a twenty-month old have?

I guess that he might dream of being lost and separated from us, but he's never been so, so how can he fear it?

I guess that he might dream of monsters, but he's never been told of monsters or seen a monster movie.

I guess that he overheard my rant over Obama's fiscal policy and economic "recovery" plan, but the only words that he can say are

"Dah" (Dad),

"Ma" (Mom),

"No" (No),

"Ouwie" (Ouwie),

"Mar" (Mark),

"Dogh" (Dog),

"Bye-bye" (Bye-bye),

"Oba" (Opa--German for Grandpa),

and "Whaizzatt?" (What is that?).

Everything else that he says comes out in a nonsensical babble or simply just "Zuh" or "Ooh tuh!."

So I doubt highly that he was disturbed over my rant which included such terms as "irresponisible," "inflationary," "idiotic," "socialistic," or "counter-productive."

I also doubt that he understood such phrases as "catering to imbiciles," "populist nonsense," "false messiah," "the insidious consequence of universal suffrage," or "trailor-park economics."