Buon Giorno Principessa

Our Early Morning Routine
5:45 a.m. - Sofi wakes up, stretches, scratches her ears, cleans her unmentionable parts like a cat, yawns really loud. Her way of saying - Get up and take me for a walk.
5:50 a.m. - Realizing we aren't moving yet, she jumps off our bed (don't get me started on why we have a dog in our bed) and makes her way to the front door.
5:51 a.m. - Sofi scratches the front door, whines a little, and then sits patiently in front of it. This is Lance's cue to get dressed and take her out.
6:00 a.m. - Sofi and Lance leave for a quick walk. I go back to sleep.

Are you picturing this yet? Well, this morning, Sofi decided to mix it up a bit. She woke up at her usual time but both Lance and I were NOT getting up that early. Lance worked until 2 a.m. and I never sleep well when he is gone. Needless to say, we were beat.

She did her usual scratch, lick, yawn, stretch bit and then scratched relentlessly at the front door, whining quite loudly. We both pretended we were completely deaf and in comas. Realizing we weren't going to budge, Sofi trotted back into our room.

Silence. Silence always means trouble when you have a snoopy beagle. I dared to peek out of one of my eyes, only to see her sitting right next to my side of the bed, her head cocked slightly to one side, looking for signs of life. I should have been an actress because I was doing a great job of pretending I was asleep. Sofi knew better.

Next thing I know, she is up on our bed, burrowing herself underneath the covers next to me.

"Good." I thought. "She is going back to sleep. Good girl."

Boy, was I wrong. Definitely wrong. No more monkey business for this dog. She thrashed around under the covers for about 2 minutes. When I say thrash, I mean THRASH. As though she was bitten by fleas. Hoping to win my Oscar for this great sleep scene, I laid as still as a stump.

Sofi peeked out of the covers every 30 seconds or so to see if I was awake. Then, seeing I wasn't going to give in, she went back to her undercover burrowing. After her doing this twice, I couldn't feign it any longer. My laugher gave me away.

She proceeded to bound out from underneath the comforter, shower me with puppy kisses, then sit at the edge of the bed looking longingly at the door. (I am not exaggerating. She has these looks about her. Guilty looks, sad looks, mad looks, begging looks. Her eyes are quite expressive.) Against every fiber in my being, I got up, put on a coat and shoes and took that silly dog for her morning trot around the block.

Mission accomplished, Princess Sofi.