My daughter began a new daycare (or I guess I’m supposed to call it pre-school) a few weeks ago.  She goes three mornings a week so that I can have some sanity time to myself to nap get things done. In exchange for the kindness and care they show for my daughter, I have agreed to take home and into my charge the class pet, a bunny named Peanut, for the weekend. Pretty old school, huh? A class pet! That was just one of the things I really liked about this new pre-school.

I am now beginning to think this was a bad idea. Here is a play-by-play of my life for the last few hours since the bunny arrived:

Arrive home with child and bunny.

Put the bunny on the ground in the front yard and let the dog come and have a sniff, figuring she’ll bark a bit and then get over it… Ha!

Bring the bunny in the house and place the cage on the living room floor.

Watch as the dog begins to paw at the cage, whine and cry. She then begins to butt the cage with her head, so I decide to get the cage off the floor and clear off a desk in the den. All the while, Muffin is crying, “Mine! Mine! My bunny!”

The dog follows as I place the cage on the desk. She jumps and whines and cries. incessantly.

I decide to call Greg at work so I can share the chaos; I just hold the up the phone. “See ya at lunch, Honey!”

Muffin brings over a chair so she can climb up to where the bunny is and takes Peanut’s water bottle. She wants to hold the bunny, but I tell her she must take a nap first. Meltdown ensues.

The dog won’t stop crying, so I decide a better course of action would be to close the bunny in our bedroom to get it out of the dog’s sight, hoping she’ll eventually forget the bunny’s there. Again…ha!

I put Charlie down for a nap and she starts screaming.

I go into the living room and attempt to write.

The dog is parked at the bedroom door with her nose buried in the crack under the door; she is panting and whining. I try to lure her away with cheese. No luck.

Muffin is screaming,”MaMe! Maaaa Meee!”

I go in to check on her. “What is it, Honey? You need to take a nap.”

“Where bunny go?”

“He’s sleeping. Now you sleep too and we’ll play with the bunny when you get up.”

Greg finally comes home for lunch to a whining dog, a screaming toddler, and an exasperated wife.  He takes the dog for her lunchtime walk but has to drag her away from the bedroom door.

He advises to put the bunny up on the dresser in our room. I do that.

The dog returns from her walk and heads straight for the bedroom.

Cue the jumping, more whining, pawing.  In five minutes, I have a nice collection of dog claw scratches down the front of my dresser.

I have graduated from exasperated to fuming.

I sit on the couch and stare straight ahead.

Charlie is still crying.

Dog is still whining.

Greg thinks maybe we should move the cage out to the backyard for a while and let the dog get used to her out there.

“Sure, “ I say defeated.

“Or you can take the bunny back to school.”

“Maybe we can keep the bunny and get rid of the dog.”

He moves the cage outside and goes back to work.

The dog follows, and her whining graduates to full-fledged barking.

After fifteen minutes of nonstop barking, for fear that my neighbors will come after me with pitchforks, I decide leaving the bunny outside won’t work either, so I take her back to my bedroom and shut the door.

It is three hours later. The child is finally asleep. The dog is still whining at the door. It’s going to be a looooong weekend.