Frolicking pups and channeling looooooove!

Well after an extended five week holiday, my household hit school with bump. The annoying alarm clock went off in what seemed like the middle of the night. It was pitch black through the crack in my curtains and my toes were repelled by the cold as they hit the frigid carpet. Unwillingly I padded down the tiles in a fog, feeling like the lead in someone else's nightmare. How did five weeks of holiday bliss evaporate so quickly?

Nevertheless I dutifully roused the dead with varying margins of success and eventually there were 6 not very pleased undead vainly shuffling around like zombies from "Thriller" without much purpose. Teeth were brushed, all the hot water was used up in the shower  till the last bitter complaint, and we were off, off to school again ready to talk and write about "What I did this holiday." Sadly the same fate awaited my class...and I was as excited about it as everyone else.

In the front seat, however there was another passenger in the car. His name is Charles. ( true story) He is two months and thirteen days old, black with some white flecks, a cross between Papillion ( French for butterfly) and a Skottie. ( A puppy, for goodness sake!) A gift from Roger to M, who turned 14 this holiday. When I hear the constant whining late into the night or find "an accident" inside the house...my suspicions are aroused about Roger. Do you think he lies in bed at night, his lips curled up in pleasure as he contemplates the hairy natural disaster he has gift wrapped my way?
I think so, don't you?

Rogers deft assault aside, I was in a quandary as to what I should do with the wee royal mutt whilst at school. You see we have a much larger hound at home, Maggie...and I have seen the way she has eyed Charles..the way I would eye a perfectly delicious hors d oeuvre on a silver platter.Rather than let her snack away while we were gone I determined to take Charles to school.   I mean how much trouble can a wee timorous beasty be in a classroom ? I was about to find out.

 It was bitterly cold when the bell rang ominously for the start of school. The children lined up a little noisily and waited for further instructions. Our Head of Department began with announcements and was all but drowned out by a high pitched moaning and whining from my classroom, not unlike a tropical bird I noted. I hastily explained what was causing the sound. Of course I had to bring Charles out to meet and greet, which he did quite royally, foolishly I was encouraged.

We lead off into the classroom. I thought I would throw the children headlong into work, the black fuzz nestled under my arm. Eventually he let me know he would prefer to be set down on the floor. How long since his last successful toilet trip? I tried to calculate, figuring if it would be alright to let him have a go at the carpeted floor. He bounded happily scoffing the scraps of paper the children had already begun to accumulate   on the floor. I eyed him wondering how one would do Heimlich Maneuver on a small pup choking on a piece of paper.

Eventually the hair under my armpit goes limp and I lay the pup to rest in his crate. There followed a good period where peace reigned and we could get along with the classroom business of educating young minds.
Piece of cake....
During period three, someone in the area near to the blackboard dropped their pencil. The black peril zips out of it's crate, tears along the dotted line and in a millisecond has the pencil in it's mouth. The audience is appreciative and is over generous in it's laughter. Of note, the victims of the fuzzy guerrilla warfare include, several shoelaces, a severely disfigured eraser, a few more purposefully dropped pencils  ( kids really!!!!)

During reading circle, we were all engrossed in our Ginn reader when the perilous fuzzball charges from an unknown starting point and plops into the lap of a well covered boy. ( Much to his utter surprise and delight!) He nestled there sampling the pages with his sharp little puppy teeth. Giggles...and more giggles...SIGH.
This was beginning to become tedious.

From somewhere in the classroom a messenger was dispatched to inform me our guerrilla warrior had left a small smelly landmine in "the quiet corner." Had we reached out of control? If we hadn't already we were pointed in that direction. Eventually the school bell rang to signify the end of a long tortuous day. I sigh, "Please Miss, " comes the polite request, " Can you bring him back tomorrow?"