Late to School

This morning, Danielle was late to school.

It could have been entirely avoided, but for her lack of cooperation.

We had gone camping this weekend (and managed to meet up with an Internet buddy I've been corresponding with for a couple of years) at a campground almost two hours from home.  In order to facilitate meeting with our friends, we opted to stay an extra night and head for home early this morning.

We had an excellent time with our friends, and the day went by far too quickly.  Our friends are also adoptive parents, so it was nice to spend some time with people who really understood what we go through on a daily basis.

Last night, after our friends left, we loaded everything we could into the truck, so that we'd have less to do in the morning.  Danielle knew we'd be getting up early and would need to hurry in order to get her to school on time.

She did everything she could to slow us down.

FosterEema and I both scurried about, but when we asked Danielle to do something, she went out of her way to do it wrong.  I asked her to put some things inside the truck; she put them on the picnic table instead.  Since we were packing up before dawn, we needed a flashlight.  She'd use it for one task, and then "misplace" it so we had to spend time looking for it.

By the time we were hitched up and ready to go, I really wanted to give Danielle a swift kick to the backside.

We ended up leaving 30 minutes later than our planned departure time.

I did my best to make up time on the drive home, but there was only so much I could do.  It was extremely dark and foggy, and the road conditions for a significant portion of our trip demanded safety over speed.  Although I did my best, we ended up rolling up (with the trailer still with us) on Danielle's school just a few moments before the bell rang.

"If you run, you might make it to class on time," I encouraged.

My last sight of Danielle, as I pulled away from the curb, was of her dragging her feet to class, walking as slowly as possible.