I'm playing stay-at-home mom for the next 48 hours. This was much easier when the rigor of a public school schedule was not involved. This morning, Brian took Jackson to preschool and just left for his Air Force Reserves from there. I had Riley for the next 45 minutes before we had to walk to school, so we finished getting ready, looked for a family for her dollhouse on the internet, played on the piano, played in the dollhouse, and then I realized suddenly we were running a tad late. Not very late, but just maybe a couple of minutes. I tossed Riley's lunchbox and folder in her backpack and drug her out the door to make it to school before the bell rang. We went out the back door, and I left Skoshi inside, because she has issues with separation anxiety, and often when I leave her at home, I look back to see her forlornly leaping vertically to catch a glimpse of us over the top of the fence. So, it was out the back door, out the gate and off to school at a trot. We had just made it to the crosswalk when I heard an ominous "JINGLE-POUNCE--JINGLE,JINGLE-POUNCE" and turned to find Skoshi bounding behind us with tongue and ears flapping in the air and that "I'M FREE! I'M FREE!" glint in her eyes. I'm sure you can appreciate that the added chaos of a frantically bouncing dog zipping into and out of traffic is not appreciated by anyone in the last few minutes of drop-off time... least of all by the mom in a t-shirt, shorts and wet hair that is zipping after the dog. At this point, Skoshi was still on the home side of the street, and bounding towards her favorite trail run, which is just a half-block from the school. I had convinced Riley that she could cross the street with the cross guard and walk down the sidewalk to school by herself - although I was quite conflicted about this. I had my suspicions that Riley might take a more leisurely pace than was warranted, and could quite conceivably not even make it past the butterfly garden and its enticing bridge if there were enough butterflies about. And since our house has already received one morning phone call from the principal when Riley was found wandering the halls (lost and crying, first week of school), I was loathe to have our family appear to be recidivist.
Skoshi must have read my mind. She turned around, sprinted past me, and followed Riley onto the elementary school campus.
This was definitely against the rules.
Skoski sprinted past Riley and into the carpool drop-off area. I was running to catch her when I looked back to find Riley stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, laughing and saying "OH NO!" So, I jogged back to push her along, and even suggest that she may want to RUN to the front door. (the sidewalk outside of the school was taking on that deserted one-minute-'til-the-bell look). I gave her a helpful "Go thataway" shove, and turned away at a sprint to try and catch Skoshi, who fortunately had stopped for the moment. Unfortunately, this was to take a poo break in the grassy patch that is in the middle of the car-pool drop-off loop.
Great.
Hoping that her lapse of appropriate-place-to-poo decorum would be enough to distract her, I put forth as much of a burst of speed as I could muster (Oh, did I mention that I had already run 10 miles this morning? Not quickly, but with the last 3 miles at a sub-8-minute pace). True to form, Skoski waited until I was within inches of grabbing her collar to dash away and zip under the carpool drop-off awning. The teacher that was manning the drop-off area did make a valiant effort to grab her, but this only forced Skoshi to alter course... through the nearby open door, and into the school.
Thankfully, there was a teacher at her classroom door, and at first Skoski turned right around and headed back towards me.
But then, she thought better of it, and took the only other available route, into the 5th grade classroom across the hall. Some children were milling about and some were in their seats, but all were trying to catch and pet this adorable, furry, and oh-sooo-novel and exciting (and illegal) visitor to their classroom. All the while, the teacher was shooting at me those stern and disapproving looks that they must teach them in school, and yelling for the class to calm down so I could retrieve the errant dog. And boy, is that teacher-disapproval look effective, I kept thinking to myself "This is sooo against the rules... and neither one of us has a visitor pass... will this go in my permanent record?"
I did finally manage to catch Skoshi's collar, and pull her out of the school, while the teacher above glowered at me with "Who brings a dog onto the school campus" looks (It's possible I was projecting my own emotions at that point).
The car-drop-off managing teacher at least had a sense of humor about it, and pointed out that the dog should have started in kindergarten instead of skipping straight to the 5th grade, and another teacher also made light-hearted comments about it. However, the teacher whose classroom had just been invaded was clearly NOT amused.
So, I drug Skoshi home, and then jogged back with a clean-up bag for the school lawn. I'm not quite sure how she managed to get out of the house and out of the backyard, but I have clearly underestimated her!
It's times like these that I'm hopeful that I don't look like the doctor who has a clinic down the street...
So, now I'll never calm down enough to get a nap before Riley's lunch time! And that nap was the only way I convinced myself to drag my feet out of bed, into my running shoes and onto the pavement at 4:45 this morning. But I've already promised Riley I would meet her for lunch, and now I must make the added effort of dressing, putting up my hair and making myself look presentable in hopes that I will in to way resemble the woman that was chasing a dog through the school that morning.
As you can tell from her post-jaunt photo, Skoshi is not remorseful in the least.
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