Have I mentioned that I hate big dogs?

Not hate really, more terrified. I'm terrified of big dogs. Terrified. I had a couple of scary experiences as a child and now...terrified. I don't like little dogs either, but little dogs you can kick if they try to get you. I'm not going to be kicking any pit bulls.

So my neighbors have a dog. Big one. I think it is a pit bull, but I'm not sure. I have not closely inspected it given my terror.

Grace walks to school with kids from across the street. Every morning I stand in the front room and watch her cross the street, go into their house, come out of their house and then watch until she walks around the corner.

This morning Grace crossed, walked in, walked out and as she walked out in the corner of my eye I see a great big dog charging at her and her friend.

So I'm out of the house like a shot. The girls are screaming and running away and apparently whatever I yell at that dog was loud enough and mean enough to get its attention. It stopped dead in its tracks and looked at me.

"Go back in house!" I say to the girls and mom across the street gathers them back inside her house. She puts them in her van and drives them to school and here I am. Me and the dog. Great.

So I run back in my house and call the dog's owner. I hardly ever call her. She's obviously surprised to be hearing from me at 8 AM. I tell her the dog is out. Please come out and put him away, he's chasing kids.

Then she utters those dreaded words "I'm not home." And husband I ask? Nope, he's already gone too.

I know what's coming next. I know what she'll say and I want to cry. Literally cry.

"Will you walk across the street and put him back in the backyard?"

Yeah, I'm gonna cry. "I can't," I say. "You know how scared I am of dogs. I just can't."

"You can," she says. "I'll stay on the phone with you. He won't bite you. I wouldn't ask you to do it if I thought he'd bite you."

Seriously, I'm so scared I really thought I'd start crying. "Fine," I say. "But you owe me big and I mean really, really big."

She tells me the dog's name. (Like I care. That's like needing to know the name of the guy who breaks in your house and murders you in the night.)

I walk across with my neighbor still on the phone with me. (Thanks to the guy who invented cordless phones by the way.) As I approach the dog is going crazy, barking and jumping.

"He won't try to get you," she says.

Um, hello. He's barking and lunging for me which is like dog-ese for 'I'm going to get you.' I have this "dogs can sense fear thing" in the back of my mind, so I'm smiling and calling the dog's name in the sing-songy voice.

"I can't do this, Sara," I whisper into the phone. "I can't do it. I can't."

"You can," she says. "Just push the gate open and tell him to go in and then latch it."

And I did. And then he jumped at the gate. So per her instructions I waited until he went further in to the backyard and then double checked the latch.

"Ok, he's put away. And I must really, really love you, because that was the most horrible thing I've had to do in a long time. Seriously, you so totally owe me now."

She knows she owes me. Owes me big.

I came back in the house and collapsed on the couch and I didn't want to cry in front of Brynn.

"Wow," she says. " You are tough, mom. That was scary."

"Nah," I say. "It was ok. He's back in his house now, so its fine."

But yeah, I am super tough.