Sleeping and Dogs

Sometime while I was pregnant with Tyson we made the ultimate decision to kick Turbo out of our bed. It was tragic and rough and I'm sure there were several tears spilled but it was fabulous. I know the "experts" suggest never allowing a dog into your bed in the first place. But have these experts ever tried sleeping when their oh so cute and cuddly, furry little puppy whines and whimpers and cries all night long until they finally place their oh so cute and cuddly, furry little puppy in their bed and find the whining and whimpering and crying ceases? Yeah, I didn't think so.

So that's how it began. We had Turbo and the easiest way to sleep at night was to allow him into our bed.
And that worked great for about a year. Then this crazy thing happened; well, two crazy things: our little dog became not so little anymore and I became impregnated by my darling husband. Thus Turbo had to leave the bed.

Now this situation has been very merry and bright for quite some time. Then, oh then we added another dog to the family. And I am so not kidding when I say that the only reason Scout is still in this family is because she makes Stuart laugh on a daily basis.

While I was working at the hospital, Stuart got into the habit of letting the dogs sleep in bed with him. Not a huge deal; I mean, I wasn't sleeping in the bed so no harm, no foul. But after I stopped working and joined the land of daytime people, somehow the dogs didn't leave the bed. Well, Turbo did. But Scout...

Not only does she still sleep in the bed, but she sleeps UNDER THE COVERS. She starts by nudging Stuart's legs and worms her way under the covers till she's in. Then she slowly creeps from Stuart's side of the bed to mine. And once she hits my space, she unfurls. Legs and feet stretch out as far and long as she can possibly push them. We end up with something like this:

And I am not lying when I say I wake up all night long kicking her out of the bed. She then repeats the whole darn process so that every morning I wake up with my knees touching my chin and the covers somewhere between gone and not there.

Not wanting to be left out, Turbo decides to join in every once in a blue moon. And we end up with this:

That lump in between? That's me. Definitely not sleeping.