Acceptance...

It's about 10.30pm, and I am reading blogs, when I hear Connahs bedroom door close. This happens most nights - He gets up to come into our room, and always closes his bedroom door on the way out, to stop any cats getting in. (He hates cats in his room.)
So I immediately get up to take him back to his own bed. I go past his room on the way to collect him, and open his door so I don't have to juggle a sleepy Connah and a door handle, and happen to glance at his bed.

He is in his bed. Sleeping. With the blankets neatly tucked up to his chin, just like I left him three hours ago.

Who the fuck closed the door?

I check his room, and discover his sliding door is unlocked and unbolted - we had been playing outside earlier and I'd forgotten to lock it when we were done.

I run to the Attacks room. He is still there, sleeping.

Mark proceeds to check every corner of the house, including a perimeter search with the dog (dog finally came in handy...) Which turns up nothing.

In all likely hood, Connah has closed it himself. (Or really un-likely hood, since he hates having his door shut and would never intentionally close it with himself on the inside, let alone put himself back to bed without calling out to me...)

Maybe sleepwalking?....

Mark goes to bed, and I stay up way later than I intend. To hover ineffectually over the monitors, listening for any signs of disturbance.

I finally decide to go to bed, resigned to the fact that I will get no sleep. I open the door to the hallway, and almost trip over Jax, who Mark had stationed outside Connahs open door.

I had one of those amazing moments where everything changes completely, though nothing has actually changed except my perception.

I have a dog.

I slept. And I was able to sleep because I knew that there was a Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing a dog coat patrolling the hallway. Nothing was getting in last night without us knowing about it.

Because I have a dog. (I feel like I'm at an AA meeting: "Hello, my name is Rachael, and I have a dog....")

I have fought against him for so long, trying to make him have as little an impact on my life as possible, (which, as it turns out, is not possible at all. He is fricken HUGE. And jumpy. You try to ignore something that is sailing about over your head, knocking you into trees as you try to make your way from the front door to the car. It's hard.)

The idea of actually trying to include him in my life seems odd. And a little bit ludicrous. The fact that he has managed to get through my resentment and distaste for him, and secretly forge a bond so that I was able to trust him to keep us safe while we were sleeping is fricken amazing. And a little sneaky.

So, it's taken a year to get here: I have a dog. I don't know if I'll ever love him, but I can appreciate him now. He has stopped staring at me for extended periods of time just to be annoying. He no longer eats the cat food every day deliberately to make my life more difficult - he does it because he's hungry - even though he's already been fed 12 times. He now smells like fresh daisies instead of the unusually strong musty wet dog that has been trapped inside a hot box for 6 months perfume that used to waft in a ten foot radius around him. (That one is a lie - he still smells like wet dog.) And when he sails about over my head knocking me around, he kindly misses the trees about half the time.

Perception is great.


xox