90 pounds of reeking garbage moved into my kitchen

We measure attachment/trauma progress with Miles in the little things.  Like the fact that more spontaneous kisses and hugs are happening and he's not doing it manipulatively.  It's in the fact that he only spits his food out when he's really stressed once or twice a week instead of at every meal.  It's in the fact that at our last visit to the psychologist, she used the term "secure base" to describe my relationship with Miles.  Secure base, y'all!  Hot snot!  And you know what?  I think she's right.  It has taken us a whole year- and we are still growing and our relationship is still evolving and he is still healing, but by golly- we are so getting there!

Another sign of healing: the boy got in the same room as our dog and did not lost his mind.  This is the same dog that he has been terrified of since the day he came home.  We decided that our Emma dog might just need to move into the house (on a trial run!) in her golden years.  She's 8 and has bad allergies and depression and anxiety.  Essentially, our dog is a nut case.  (She fits right in!)  She's been an outside dog for about 6 years and now that she's old, well, we just feel sorry for her and so we are giving this inside dog thing a whirl- even though Miles hates animals and I'm neurotic about dogs in the house.  We started out this experiment with a car ride to the pet store that has the do-it- yourself dog wash.  Our dog stunk.  Take the worst smell you've ever smelled and magnify it by infinity.  She was like 90 pounds of reeking garbage with a side of bad breath.

We brought the beast home and Miles wasn't quite sure what he thought about his arch nemesis invading his space.  He stood up on a chair like a 1950's housewife who'd seen a mouse and screamed "No!" about a million times.  Then he took a big step and decided that he was just going to have to roll with it and choose to cope.  He was slow at first...

Then he decided he wanted a piece of the action...

He figured out that the dog would not kill him and that maybe this could just work out okay. Then he decided that he was happy.

And the dog was happy...

And the mama was happy.  But the mama is sitting around in sweatpants, no bra, no makeup and is broken out like a 15 year old boy, so no pictorial evidence.  But trust me, the mama's happy :-)  Ahh, yes.  The mama's happy.