The Seven Phases of Sleeping with a Beagle
I can pretty much sleep anywhere. Or so I thought. I am a very good sleeper, it takes a lot to keep me up at night. Or so I thought. Todd and I both move around a lot when we sleep. Rolling over, flailing an arm, kicking, etc. When we got our Tempurpedic bed, 7-8 years ago, we both settled into to the dense memory foam and it served as a shock absorber for all the movement while we sleep.
Two weekends ago we embarked on a journey to renovate our bedroom. Our renovation ideas went well beyond a coat of paint, new carpet and curtains. He envisioned white wainscoting, I envisioned green paint. He’s a woodworker, so the wainscoting will be made by hand by us, instead of purchasing the pre-made panels. We tore out the carpet. Now we need to find a suitable vendor for carpet that won’t cost us an arm and a leg (OMG, Lowes! Seriously? Are your carpet installers hiding caches of diamonds under the pad?)
We disassembled the beloved king size Tempurpedic nest and propped it up against the wall in the blue guest room. We moved dresser drawers into both the blue room and the lavender rooms. Every night it’s like we are sleeping in an episode of Hoarders, with the belongings from our master bedroom piled up in every available square inch of floor space.
We settled in to sleep on the queen size bed in the lavender bedroom. It’s not a Tempurpedic. It’s a spring bed. We slept on this bed every night at the old house. But since we went to the Tempurpedic, we have eliminated tolerance with each other as we sleep. He flails his arm on a spring bed. I feel it like an 8 on the Richter scale earthquake. I wake up and cuss at him. I flop from one side to the other, which jolts him awake. We lie in the dark and stare at the ceiling, jaws clenched because we know that morning will be here soon and will we ever get used to sleeping on a spring mattress again?
On the first night I moved to the full size bed in the blue bedroom. The beagle followed me in and took up residence on one whole other side of the bed. He may be less than 30 pounds, but every move that little dog makes feels like I am sleeping on a bowl of jello when sleeping on a spring mattress.
Until the renovation is complete this will be my life, I give you the Seven Phases of Sleeping with a Beagle.
It starts out well enough. I fall asleep, he's on his bed. Life is good.
But then he up and changes his mind. He leaps off the floor and lands on the bed with a thud. Then he decides that a down comforter is not enough. He must fluff and claw to engineer a nest that human architects would envy. Todd and I joke about whether Nemo pulled a permit from City Hall before his construction project.
The construction ends just in time for him to decide he's too cold. He'll either claw at the comforter up near my face until I raise it just enough for him to commando crawl under and jam his business end into my face. Most nights he'll just plaster himself against me to syphon my body heat.
And then the self bathing. Usually at 3 AM.
OK. All clean. And suitably nesty. Only now he's not long enough.
OK, I can live with 1/8 of the bed. But it's 3 AM. Let's bark it up for no reason. And the beagle bay is very distinctive, at obnoxious o'clock at night.
He settles in right around 4-5 AM. Which is just in time to get 2 hours of sleep before I have to get up for work. He sleeps approximately 20 hours per day. I am not an International Dog of Leisure, and must be awake and functioning at the day job.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.
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added on 01.18.16